Family Portrait
by RMTNDEW
Summary: Hell found me. No matter how far I went or fast I ran, it always found me.' Delia Walker is the niece of Scott Summers and after a family crisis brings her to the mansion, he thinks everything's fine. And then Logan comes home.
1. Family Reunion

Disclaimer: If you don't know by now, I don't own any of the rights to Marvel or their characters. However, I do own a nifty little 'X3: The Last Stand' pin with Wolverine on it. So thanks to the nice little X-Menfan-girl who worked at the movie theater and gave it to me!

Dedications: I have never dedicated any of my stories to anyone before, but I thought it fitting to do so with this one. My cousin Bobby 'Uncle Bob' Rutherford died just a day after I started writing this story. He had been sick and I guess that I had him on my mind while I was creating the character of 'Bobby Johnson', as he's quite a bit like him. He was a great guy, a friend to everyone and always helped out anyone he could. So to Bobby, I dedicate this story to you.We love you, we miss you, thank you.

* * *

Family Portrait

Hell found me.

No matter how far I went or how fast I ran, it always found me. It never lacked ways; it only took time. I had been running for a long time and finally, at five o'clock on a Thursday morning, it found me once again. It always took different forms. That morning, it was a knock on the door.

I pulled myself up from where I had barely been sleeping on the couch of my apartment and walked to me front door. Upon opening it, there was a mix of shock and expectedness that was all too familiar to me.

"Sorry to wake you up, Delia," Officer Johnson apologized with a small frown, "but we found Katie and I thought you might want to know we have her down at the station. She's safe."

I let out a relieved sigh and ran my hand back through my sleep-tangled hair. I felt the cold winter weather that came with the end of December, blow its way through my front door and send a chill down my body. I shuddered. I didn't know if it was because of the breeze that had weaved its way into my home or from the news that I had just received.

"How is she? Is she okay?" I asked, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to fight off the chill bumps that were rising on my skin.

Noticing that I was cold, Officer Johnson stepped inside and quickly closed the door behind him. "She's okay," he said slowly, taking off his hat and holding it in both his hands. He kept his eyes trained on the floor. "She was asleep when I left to come here. She'll probably have a pretty bad hangover when she wakes up, but other than that, I think she's going to be okay."

I let out another sigh. "All right, thank you." I tried to force out a polite smile, but I was afraid that it came out more as a grimace instead.

"We have to keep her there. She caused a big scene at Merv's tonight. She needs a lot of help."

"Merv's?" I asked and he finally looked up and met my eyes.

"I'm sorry Delia, I'm afraid so. Merv sent you your weeks pay and his apologies, but your mother did a lot of damage to the diner and he had to let you go."

For an officer he had never been great at breaking news to my family. He and his partner had been the first officers to arrive when my father had been hurt, and eventually died, while working. He had been a nervous wreck when he told us about it, stuttering and sweating. When he was through, I wasn't sure who looked worse; him or my mother. He had always had a small crush on her and ever since my fathers passing, he had done his best to take care of us. Every time mother got in trouble, he was the first there. Every time she would go off for days, some times even weeks, he let me stay with him in his house.

When I officially became an adult, I took a job at Merv's diner. He would over look my tardiness and gave me extra 'sick days' when I was had to take care of my mother. Partly because he knew my family, but more than that, he had grown up with my grandfather and had promised to take care of us if he were to pass away. Which he did.

I had moved more times than I cared to count, but between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five, we had moved thirteen different times. We had lived at our current apartment for nearly ten months, and rather than feeling grateful for it, it made me anxious, knowing that it would be over soon enough.

"How bad is she?" I finally brought myself to ask.

"She was pretty out of it, but she was only drunk. We did find three ounces of coke on her, though." His voice seemed to shrink as the news got worse.

"She was doing so well. Where in the world did she get enough money for three ounces of coke, not to mention getting trashed?" I asked. However, I answered my own question the moment I asked it. She _had_ been doing well. So well in fact that I had agreed to let her be in charge of our bills and had given her the money for the water, electricity and phone. And the rent. She had spent our rent money on drugs and beer. Super-freakin'-fantastic.

"She needs help," he said, a near whisper.

"Bob," I said, "I don't know what to do. She's in jail, I've lost my job and suddenly she's decided to get picky and spend all of our bill money on coke instead of crack. At least that stuff was cheaper."

I was furious but I couldn't tell if it was at her or me. Sure, she had been the one to blow the money, but I had been gullible enough to actually give it to her. Perhaps it was a mix of both. I wasn't sure and I didn't have enough time to stop and try to figure it out. December was almost up, with no rent money or job; I was homeless.

"Let me help," he said. It almost came out as a plea, but I didn't care, I was just glad that he had found his voice again.

"How?" I asked.

"I'll pay for Katie to go through rehab."

"Again? I can't pay you back this time Bobby; I don't have the money. I owe everything that Merv gave you and without a job, I don't, I can't…I don't even know. I just don't know what to do."

"I'm going to take care of her, don't worry about anything. Do you need to stay with me or do you have somewhere you want to go?"

I opened my mouth then closed it before opening it again. "You know, I think I'm going to go stay with my uncle in New York, if that's okay?"

He smiled at me kindly, seeming to lighten up despite himself and the still heavy conversation. "I think that's a good idea. Does he still live at that school?" I nodded my head. "Why don't you stay until the summer comes and then you can come back and we can decide what to do about Katie then, okay?"

"It sounds like a plan to me."

I almost felt bad about being relieved to have a chance to get away. I was escaping her abused world for one of people who were more likely to suit me. Had I only known what lay ahead for me, I would have been torn between feeling even guiltier to have left and yet terrified of my so-called escape. As I said earlier, Hell found me. It never lacked ways; only time.

* * *

I looked at my reflection in the cab window and tried to calm my nerves. Let it be an adventure, I told myself. But the thought of suddenly living with people I didn't know, and the ones that I did, it had been so long since I had seen them, was a bit scary. I was a grown woman of twenty-five and I was scared of strangers. I shook my head at the silliness of it and saw that the bow that I had tied out of purple ribbon was coming lose of my left pigtail. I quickly retied it as we pulled to a stop light and came to a sudden halt. The cab driver yelled something in a language I didn't understand and made a rude hand gesture to a man walking across the street in front of us. The man smacked the hood of the cab and kept walking.

My reflection stared back at me with sad eyes. They were green, bight green, but they were sad. When I was young, my mother would tell me that when I was born, fairies came to bless me. When they asked my parents what they wanted for me, my father said for me to never be harmed.

My mother said for me to never lose my sense of imagination.

And when they said they could have one more blessing, my father and my mother both asked for me to have eyes that were bright with curiosity and wonder and to always have them wide open. Though I have long since quit believing in fairies, I believe that I was blessed with my parent's wishes in some ways.

My father didn't want me to be hurt. He was in a business where he was hurt daily and didn't want me to feel the same pain as he. When I was twelve, my mother had gone off again and I had been staying with Officer Johnson. He had to go to work and left me with his sister at her house. I was in the backyard with her two daughters, jumping on their trampoline when I fell and landed on my arm. With any normal person, it should have broken. Mine didn't. There were only bruises. I soon learned that my bones were somewhat rubber like. They wouldn't, _couldn't_, break. I wasn't like a contortionist or anything, my body knew its limits, but the bones had taken their fair share of beatings and not one had ever broken.

My mother asked for me to never lose my childish imagination. She had grown up in a white collared family where you did everything by the book. She hated it. She needed space and new people. She couldn't live by strict rules inside a stuffy house and when she was only seventeen, she moved out. She couldn't stay in Connecticut, so she moved to California with a busload of strangers and then drove back across the country, stopping in New York. Right after she turned nineteen, she met my father and after dating for two moths, they got married. Ten months later, there I was and we all moved back to Connecticut. She still hated it there and wanted to get out as much as possible. Her imagination never faltered and as I grew, she would tell me of the places she had been and where she wanted to go. Some times, I wondered if they were real places or if perhaps she was only making them up. Once my father died, she disappeared into her own little land and refused to take me with her. While she was gone, I was left to my own devices and had to find ways to amuse myself. I was my own best friend, I had to be, and so my imagination was always working on ways to keep myself entertained, but to also try to find ways to keep my mother at home.

As far being curious, it had been both a blessing and a curse as my constant questioning of things some times got me into trouble. Or I would find out things that should have remained hidden. I wanted to know how things worked and why. I needed to understand and have answers because I needed to figure life out for myself and for my mother. If I could ask enough questions, perhaps I could eventually get enough answers and then I might be able to make her happy again. I had spent nearly all of my life trying to make her happy, but it seemed that maybe, I was the reason why she was sad.

The cab slowed down as we approached the large wrought iron gates of Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. You really give your age away when you still use the word 'youngsters,' I thought.

"Are they expecting you here or do you have to buzz something to be let in?" the cab driver asked.

"Oh, uh, they're expecting me, but I don't need you to drive me up, I can walk."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, thanks."

I paid the cab fare before gathering my things from the back seat and the trunk and then watched as he drove away. As soon as he was out of view, I heard a loud click and then the gates swung open. I picked up all of my bags and struggled slowly to the front door of the school. I juggled around some of the bags in my arms in an attempt to open the door, but before I could figure out how to do it, the door opened and I saw my uncle standing there smiling at me.

"Hey Uncle Scott. Thanks for opening the door for me."

"You're welcome. Let me help you with some of your bags." I handed him three of my bags and felt the relief in my arms. "How was your flight?" he asked, leading me into the house.

"It was good, I can't complain."

"You could," he teased.

"I won't."  
He smiled at me and I smiled back. I had gotten his dimples and seeing them mirrored back at me on his face, made me feel connected to him. As bizarre as it may sound, it made me feel as though if ever my mother were to be gone completely, there was a least one other person in the world that I had left. It was a happy and sad feeling all at once.

"This will be your room. If you have any problems, Jean and I are just four doors down on the left. Do you need me to help you unpack or anything?" he asked, stopping outside a door upstairs.

"No, I think I've got it. I'm probably not going to unpack everything right now. I just got around to packing it all last night."

"Procrastinator." He smiled.

I shook my head and laughed. "I missed you."

He shook his head along with mine. "Yeah, I missed you, too."

"How's Jean?" I asked as we entered my new room and placed my bags in the floor and on my bed.

"She's doing well. We're both just trying to take it easy until school starts back from winter break."

"When's that?"

"A week from tomorrow." It was Sunday. "Did you get everything settled at home?"

I let out a sigh. "More or less, yeah."

There was a pause and I wondered if he was looking at me. I hated those stupid glasses. "How's Kate?"

"She's…okay. I saw her yesterday. She was a little upset at me. I didn't get to see her long; she wanted me to leave and I had to finish packing, so I left."

"Does she know that you're staying here?" he asked quietly.

"No." I shook my head. "I thought it best not to tell her."

"You still haven't told her about you?"

I did my best to look him in the eye. "I can't. If I tell her that I'm a mutant, she'll hate me for it. And she can't hate for that, I still have to take care of her."

"She won't _hate_ you-"

"Yes she will, you know she will-"

"And why doesn't she get professional help?"

"She _is_ getting professional help, it doesn't work. This is going to be her third stint in rehab. I'm not even paying for it. I don't have the money."

"Who's paying for it?"

"Bobby Johnson."

"_Officer_ Bobby Johnson?"

"Yeah, he's the one who's taking care of her while I'm up here."

"Why?"

"Because, crazy as it sounds, he's in love with her. He always has been as far as I can remember."

"Are you going to be okay up here?"

"I think so. If I've learned nothing else out of my life so far, I've learned to stand on my own two feet when in trouble."

"You raised yourself pretty well, Delia," he said, sticking his hands into his pockets.

"You didn't do too bad yourself, Scotty."

"Well, I had my parents a little bit longer than you. Until they found out that I was a mutant, at least."

"As terribly as it was, and still is, at least you can relate better to the kids here. Perhaps you were just always meant to help other people?"

He thought for a moment before I could see a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You are the most optimistic pessimist I've ever met."

I smiled back at him because it was true.

* * *

My name is Delia Walker. I'm twenty-five years old. I have straight black hair that's to my shoulders and long, side swept bangs. I'm around five foot nine and look like a cross between my father and Uncle Scott. People say that they see me mother in my, but I'll need help the day I see it myself.

My father died when I was seven years old. People told me that it would take time for me to get over it. But I don't think you _do_ get over it. I've lived with it, accepted it, but with every year that's gone by, I've seen things that I'm missing out on. No father-daughter dances. No one to teach me how to play sports. No one to talk to my first date. With each new year, I saw more things that we were both missing. Things that most girls my age take for granite and I miss him. I do still, even now.

I know he's gone, but I can't help but still feel an old, familiar pain as I wake from my sleep to a sound that had always belonged to him in my mind. I had been there for over two weeks already and it was the first time I had heard it since arriving there. At nearly two in the morning, I hear the sound of a Harley Davidson talking down below my window, saying 'potato, potato, potato' as only they do. And for a moment, I'm seven years old and waiting for my father to come home from work. But he never did. He never would.

* * *

I woke at six o'clock. I was up before the sun. The sound of the motorcycle had died almost as soon as it had awakened me, but it had stayed with me. I wasn't at home, I could feel it, and missing my father was something that I didn't want to show to anyone just yet. So I bundled up, grabbing a blanket and snuck from the mansion as quietly as I could.

The ground was frozen, snow was falling and it felt twenty degrees out, at best. But I didn't care. I needed to be alone. To think. To clear my head. And above all, get my emotions in check. Then I could go back to the school and be fine. Right then, I had my mind set on going to the woods, sitting by the lake and doing my best at an attempt to meditate.

I trudged down there silently, save the light sound of snow crunching under my rain boots. Everything seemed so still and peaceful that when I finally made it to the lake and found a log to sit on, I wondered if perhaps I could have gone back. But I didn't. I just sat down quietly onto the dead tree and wrapped myself with the gray flannel blanket I had taken from my closet.

I closed my eyes and relaxed, just trying to breathe. It took my some time to realize that I could. Breathing is a funny thing, isn't it? It's something so natural that we hardly notice it while we're doing it, and yet it's so vital to our bodies. We can't live without breathing. I supposed it's like most important things in our life; we don't pay much attention to it until it's gone.

Living with my mother, I waited on baited breath, wondering if she was going to wind up dead somewhere. There was a constant feeling of being suffocated with her. She stole my life, my voice, my very breath with her selfish actions. And I felt guilty for feeling alive.

* * *

"Where in the world have you been?" Scott asked me as I entered the kitchen. "You missed breakfast."

"I went down to the lake to think for a little bit."

"It's thirty degrees outside.

"It was twenty before the sun came up."

"Couldn't you think somewhere warmer?" he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Or not even so early in the morning?"

"I guess, but I didn't want to," I said, taking a cup from one of the cabinets above the sink. "Pour me some."

He gave me a sideways glace. "When did you start drinking coffee?"

"When I started sitting outside for two hours in the middle of winter," I said and gave him a small wink.

He filled my cup half way before I moved over to the island in the middle of the kitchen and pulled myself up, sitting on it.

"Are you feeling okay today?"

"Yeah, why?"

He smiled at me. "No ribbons in your hair."

I smiled back at him. "I didn't think the woodland creatures would pay much attention to my hair or clothes."

"You used to. I remember when you were five and you asked me if dogs had favorite colors."

I gave a small laugh. "I remember. I was absolutely crushed when you told me they were colorblind."

The small fell from his face. "You know, I really liked your dad. He always let me talk to you when I called. I'm sorry I didn't get to know him better."

Scott was ten years older than I and when I was three and he was thirteen, he moved to Westchester county to live with the Professor. Her studied with Jean and Storm and I barely spoke to him, let alone saw him. My father must have realized that Scott was the only uncle I had and he did all that he could to make sure that I kept in touch with him. If it hadn't been for him, I would never have been there at the school.

"Scoot, good news and bad news," Rogue said, coming into the kitchen. "Which do you want first?"

"The good news."

"The good news it, I'm still cute." We both laughed. "The bad news; your motorcycle's back."

"Great," he said dryly, showing that he all but actually meant it.

"I heard it pull up this morning. Why is it a bad thing for it to be back?" I asked.

"It's not a bad thing for _it_ to be back, it just means that Logan's back, too," Scott answered.

"Who's Logan?"

Rogue laughed as she pulled a Coke from the refrigerator. "You've not told her about Logan yet?"

"No. All she needs to know is to stay away from him."

"Why? What's wrong with him?"

"He's sarcastic, crude and doesn't know any self control when it comes to flirting with women."

"He's not that bad…" Rogue said. "Well, yeah…he sort of is. But he's hot as Hell, so it's all right." She laughed.

"No it's not," Scott protested.

"Well why does the Professor let him stay here?"

"Because he's part of the team."

"Well why did he let him join the team?"

"Because he saved my life," Rogue said, walking to the doorway of the kitchen. "Twice."

"He can't be that bad then, can he?"

"He's an arrogant and pompous jerk with a bad temper."

"We all have our faults though, don't we?"

Rogue laughed as she left. "You're really in for a treat when you meet him."

"I don't understand why he's here, though. If he's so rude and you don't like him, why does the Professor let him stay here? Was he an old student or something?"

"No. A few years ago we rescued him and Rogue up in Canada. Magneto kidnapped her and Logan came with us when we went to Liberty Island to rescue her again. Since then he's alternated between living here and going to Canada for months at a time. He's been gone since September."

"If he lives here, then why does he go to Canada? What's up there?"

"He has amnesia. He remembers the past nineteen years but he's working to remember the rest of it. He was part of a mutant experimentation program. That's what made him lose his memory."

I suddenly felt bad for the man that I had never met. Scott said that he was sarcastic and crude and had a bad temper, but if I had been experimented on to the point of losing my memory, then I would probably be the same way, too.

"What did they do to him?" I asked.

"I'm not completely sure. He never talks about it. I could ask Jean, but she doesn't like talking about patients. All I know is that a man named Stryker who was a colonel in the U.S. Army had enlisted some of the military to help him with his experiments. He had managed to manipulate adamantium, which is a metal that's supposed to be indestructible. They cut him open and surgically grafted the metal to all of his bones."

"Oh my word," I gasped. "But how is that possible? How could someone _live _through that?"

"Logan's mutation allows him to heal at an amazing rate. That's why he's so important to the team. He can do his job and come out unhurt."

"How does he fight, though? If his mutation is just healing, that doesn't seem like it would really do much up against powers like yours or Jeans, or Storm's even."

"He has claws-"

"Claws?"

"Yes, claws. They're twelve inches long and they come out of his hands."

"Well _that_ on the other hand can be _very_ helpful."

"They intended to use him as a human weapon, but he escaped some how. I guess their loss is our gain in some way." He let out a sight and shook his head. "Just stay away from him, okay?"

Thought I didn't completely understand why he didn't like him, I nodded my head anyway. "Okay."


	2. The Meeting

Disclaimer: Again, I own no rights to Marvel, but if I did, I would buy me a Wolverine and put him in my room. I would like to say thank you to Chrizz who has reviewed every one of my stories, I believe, and has nothing but good things to say to me. It always great to get a nice review and I can always count on yours. Thank you and I hope ya'll enjoy!

* * *

The rest of the morning was rather uneventful. I spent the time between breakfast and lunch pretty much in my room. After lunch, I decided to paint my finger and toenails, alternation between the colors pink, blue and green. When they were done drying, my head was aching from the fumes from the paint. I decided to go outside to get some fresh air. I pulled on my pink ski cap and blue, knee length coat. After putting on my pink rain boots, which had blue, yellow and white polka dots on them, I tucked my blue jeans into them. And once I had tied my scarf around my neck and pulled on my gloves, I headed out to the school's garden.

The weather had changed since that morning. A dense fog had settled in and it felt as if I were walking out into nothingness. I had been to the garden quite a few times since I had arrived, but I felt completely lost as soon as I walked out the door. The fog reached up to the sky, which was white from the winter clouds covering it like a thick blanket, all the way down to the ground, which was also white from being covered in three plus inches of newly fallen snow.

I could see nothing except for the door from which I had come. Everything was covered and hidden by one thing or another. I felt as if I was in a cloud and I suppose, in some ways, I was. Nothing was visible to me. It all sank underneath the thickness of the fog, which seemed to fill the air with a heaviness that made it seem hard to breathe. And there I was, back to the breathing thing for the second time that day.

The world was lost in white and I wondered if it would let me get lost in it, too.

I wandered about the garden until I found the general direction of one of the benches inside it and began towards where I was sure it was. I knew that I had found it when I ran one of my shins into it.

"Banana cookies!" I screamed, my attempt to express anger without swearing.

"You alright?" I heard a gruff voice ask from somewhere in the fog.

The surprise of another person being outside with me made me jump back, causing me to trip over a hidden object in the snow or fog, or both. I tripped and fell, landing back into the cold, wet snow and feeling my head hit the hard ground.

"Hey, you alright?" came the new voice once again. I could hear him moving and soon a hand was in my sight, reaching out to help me up.

I took the hand and felt the body it was attached to help pull me up with what felt like little effort. Once I was on my own feet, I dusted the snow from me the best that I could.

"Thank you," I said. "You startled me; I didn't realize that anyone else was out here."

Not able to see whom I was speaking with, I felt as though I were talking to myself rather than attempting to hold a conversation with a person. Or start one, for that matter.

"Yeah, Chuck doesn't like me to smoke in the house," he said, his voice low and gravely.

"Oh…Chuck?" I said dumbly.

I heard him let out a small chuckle. "The Professor."

"Oh…oh, right, sorry. Slow day for me, I think the fog's settled into my brain." He laughed. "I apologize, I'm Delia," I said, introducing myself to the unnamed voice.

"Delia," he repeated. I liked the sound of it on his voice. "Like the song?"

"Yeah, only I would prefer it if you _didn't_ shoot me," I joked.

"Twice."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He shoots her twice in the song. The first time doesn't kill her, so he shoots her again."

"Yes, but I'm thinking that I don't want to be shot the first time, so I most definitely don't want to be shot the second time. Just personally, though."

"Well he shots 'cause she's devilish. You got any demons in you?"

The question was meant to be a joke; I think. But the truth was; I did. Or it felt like it anyway. I had emotions bottled up that ate away at my insides. My life. My relationships. I was lost in a sea of hate and guilt that only swelled greater and greater each day. There were definitely things inside of me that weren't innocent. Perhaps those were my demons.

"Not that I know of."

"I guess you're alright, then."

I smiled, though I was sure he couldn't see it. "Well, I'm glad. I was quite nervous about that but now I have one less thing to worry about. Thank you," I joked.

"No problem."

I tucked my hair behind my ears and tried my hardest to keep myself from reaching out and pulling the man closer, to see what he looked like.

"Well, like I said; I'm Delia. Who might you be?"

There was a small pause where I could hear him exhale, blowing out what smelled like cigar smoke. I was momentarily amused by how much better my hearing seemed to be when I couldn't really see anything.

"I might be Logan," he said and I swore that I could hear the sound of a smirk in his voice.

So this was Logan, I thought. The man my uncle had specifically told me to stay away from because he was a jerk had just helped me up from the snow. I could be wrong, but that didn't seem like something someone as rude as he had been described would do.

"So you were the one on the motorcycle last night." I smiled.

"Yeah, I didn't think anyone else was up."

"Well, I wasn't until I heard you go by under my window. It didn't bother me, though. My daddy owned a Harley so it was actually quite nice. I hadn't heard one in a while."

"Under your window? I didn't go by the student's section."

"Which is why I heard you; I'm not a student. I live on the teacher's hall."

"So what did Chuck rope you into teachin'?"

"I don't teach; I just live here."

"Fair enough. How long you been here?"

"Just over two weeks, I guess. Not too long."

He made a small grunting noise to acknowledge what I had said.

I still felt slightly awkward in the fog. Not being able to see the person you're talking to can also be odd and just add to the whole awkwardness of the situation.

"Right, well, I just stepped out for a bit of air. I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Perhaps I'll see you again at dinner?"

"Well, you ain't really seein' me now to see me again," he pointed out.

I pursed my lips in though. "Good point. Then perhaps we can see each for the first time at dinner?"

"Perhaps," he said with a slight sarcastic tone, taking a light jab at my vocabulary. "Can you find the house in this stuff?"

"Uh," I said, looking around me. I could barely a foot in front of me. However, I had managed to find a four-foot long bench in the worst weather I had ever been in, so I figured that I could find the house. "Yeah, I think I'm good."

"Not gonna' run into anything again are you?"

I laughed. "I hope not. If I trip over anything else on my way back, I'll just have to wait until this stuff clears up or I'll be lost," I joked.

"All right."

"Yeah, all right. See you at dinner."

I found the house relatively easy. The advantage I had going back was the fact that nearly all of the house lights were on. The Professor or Jean must have known that some was out in the garden, because about half way there, the fog lights came on. I turned to try to catch a glimpse of Logan, but even with all of the lights, I couldn't see him.

Once I made it to the school, I went straight up to my room. Aside from there being nowhere else for me to go, my clothes were wet from falling into the snow.

Why did I have to be such a klutz?

I looked through my brightly colored wardrobe, wondering what to change into. I saw my white polo shirt that had red paint splatters on it and a red, felt, broken heart stitched to the front. I remember Scott saying that Logan was Canadian and since red and white are Canadian colors, I decided to wear it. I changed into it, a knee length, deconstructed, blue jean skirt and my black pair of sweater boots that came just under my knee. I hope that I looked somewhat patriotic, though I wasn't sure why I actually cared. I had met him for all of five minutes. What was it about this man that made me want him to pay attention to me? Why did I give two cares about him noticing that I was wearing his country's national colors? It was one of those things where I couldn't quite put my finger on it. There was just something about him that as dinner drew closer, I no longer _wanted_ to see him; I _needed_ to.

I needed to know that he was real, not just a person that I had created in my mind. But like before, the fog seemed to have settled into my brain and clouded my memory.

Was his voice really that deep?

Were his hands really that strong?

Or had I turned it over in my head until his jokes and remarks were made to be more humorous than they actually were?

I couldn't make heads or tails of the whole situation. I had never really felt the way that I was at that time and so I didn't know how to identify it. I couldn't even find anything in all of my past experiences to which to compare it. All I could get out of myself at that moment was that I was, in a very unusual way, excited about that particular member of the house returning in time for me to possibly get to know him. Although our meeting had been once and brief, it seemed to me that Scott had gotten him _completely_ wrong.

* * *

There was a knock on my door before Scott's voice came from behind it. "Time for dinner; you coming down?" 

It was dinner already?

"Uh, yeah, I'll be down in a bit," I called from my bathroom. I had gotten bored waiting around and so I had decided to curl my hair.

Living at the school was nice. Although I worried about my mother constantly, I was sure that she was being taken care of. I didn't have a job and for once, since I was eighteen, I could just relax and not work. However, after a few days of lying about, doing nothing, I got bored. Hence the reasoning behind why I was in my bathroom with Velcro and hot rollers twisted in my hair while I curled what was left down with a curling iron. I had found various ways to amuse myself and this was just one of them.

I quickly unrolled the rollers from my hair and then turned my head over and shook it out. When I looked up at myself in the mirror, I realized that my hair looked more slept on than curly. But the style helped to soften the harsh contrast between my dark hair and pale skin.

Looking in the mirror, I knew that I resembled my father, but I had long since forgotten what he looked like and it hurt not to remember just _how_ much I looked like him.

I left for dinner right after I tidied up my bathroom, making my way down the already empty hall. Growing up as an only child, I wasn't used to the noise and I had been quite shocked when I had first moved into the school. I still hadn't quite adjusted to it just yet, but as I entered the dining hall, I was prepared for the noise that I heard.

"Did you have a good day?" Scott asked as I sat at the table across from him and Jean.

"Yeah, it was pretty good," I said, taking a plate and filling it with the lasagna in front of me. "How about you?"

He let out a sigh. "It was good," he said. He looked at me and then tilted his head to one side. "You have paint on your shirt."

I laughed. "Yeah, I bought it like that."

"Oh."

And that's about as far as I dinnertime conversations ever went. I just ate and listened to everyone else talk about their days, what they had done and about their classes. I had finished eating and was waiting to get dessert when the buzz of noise that was teenagers talking died down and quickly quieted. I wondered what had happened when I saw Jean smile up at someone while Uncle Scott grimaced.

"Well look who the cat drug in," Rogue said with a smile.

I turned my head to look over my shoulder and my own eyes locked with the most gorgeous pair of hazel eyes that I had ever seen. He didn't look away, I couldn't, and he held my gaze for about ten seconds, staring right back at me. I only looked away when I heard Scott clear his throat in order to get our attention.

"Delia, this is Logan. Logan, this is Delia-" Scott began as he tried to introduce us.

"Delia," Logan repeated, interrupting my uncle. "Like the song?"

I smiled and a small blush pinched my cheeks. "Yes, like the song," I said as he kept his eyes on my instead of Scott.

"Yeah, this is Delia, like the song… She's going to be staying with us until the summer… Logan! Stop staring at my niece!" he finally snapped, grabbing both of our attentions.

Logan looked from Scott, to me and then back to Scott again. Smirking, he shrugged his shoulders. "Good think you don't look like Scooter; you'd be ugly," he said, pulling out the empty chair beside me and sat down. He looked at me and winked. My blush deepened.

"Logan, you are not allowed to flirt, touch, or attempt to corrupt her in anyway. Basically, stay away from her. Far away. She's my niece and if I find out that you've been hitting on her or teaching her any of your bad habits, I won't hesitate to kick you're a-"

"Uncle Scott, we've just met, why are you threatening him already?"

"Because he's Logan and I know him, so I'm giving him a fair warning."

"You wanna' let me be here for a day before you start accusin' me of corruptin' people?"

"I didn't say you had, I just said that you better not."

"Well maybe you should keep a better eye on her if she's that easily influenced," he shot back, staring at Scott with an evident smirk.

I raised my hand timidly and they both turned to look at me. "Yeah, I'm not only in the room, but I'm actually sitting at the same _table_. So is there any way that we can _not _discus me as though I'm not here?" I asked.

"I agree, let's not have anymore discussion of this at the table," said the Professor. "Logan how was your trip?"

He gave a grunt as he sloppily spooned a large serving of lasagna onto his plate. I sat quietly, watching him, doing my best to look interested in what he was about to say rather than just blatantly staring.

When Scott had told me to stay away from him, he didn't bother to mention why I would be drawn to him. Sitting there, with a little less than a foot between us, waiting to hear how he was going to answer, I found out why: He was attractive. That was the least you could say of him. I mean, I know that Rogue had said that he was hot as Hell, but I thought perhaps that she was exaggerating. She wasn't. While the sound of his voice was fascinating, it didn't do his looks justice.

He was wearing a white wife beater tucked into a pair of blue jeans and a maroon, button up shirt, unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled and then pushed to just below his elbows, along with the biggest belt buckle I'd ever seen.

He was hairy and looked like he was in need of a good shave. I had never been keen on the whole hairy guy thing; it just wasn't for me. He, however, was my only exception and had changed my mind. It totally worked for him.

"It was alright, didn't find much," he answered vaguely. Didn't find much about what? What were you looking for? I wanted to ask, but felt it rude. "That army base was empty. Not disserted, cleaned out. I tried to track down what I could, but they did a good job cleanin' it and there wasn't anything left."

The Professor nodded and seemed to be focusing hard on something. "Delia, I think you should call home. Officer Johnson is trying to get in touch with you," he said to me.

I stood from the table without hesitating. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm not sure, I think you're mother may have gone missing."

"Fantastic," I said dry and sarcastically.

"How could she go missing? I thought they were supposed to have professionals taking care of her. They can't even keep up with a middle aged woman?" Scott said, standing. "Is she safe?"

"Don't worry about it Uncle Scott, I'm sure she's fine. This isn't the first time she's gone off. I think I know where she might be," I said, irritably. Unfortunately, it was true; she had gone off plenty of times. This was the second time while during a rehabilitation clinic. Couldn't she have waited until after I had gotten my brownie? "Please excuse me; I'll be back in a little bit."

I left and went to the Professor's office. I needed to talk to Officer Johnson, but when I called his phone at the station, one of the other cops said that he was out. He was looking for me mother, I knew it. She was going to cause him to lose his job. I then dialed his cell phone number and it took a few rings before he answered.

"Hello?"

"Bobby, it's Delia-"

"Delia, I've been trying to get in touch with you-"

"I know, I'm sorry, I was in the dining hall with everyone. How's mother?"

"She's missing."

I let out a sigh. "Yeah, I thought so. Do you know where she might be?"

"No, I've been driving around for about forty-five or fifty minutes and I haven't seen her."

"Have you tried any of the bars?"

"Yeah, about four different ones. No one's seen her."

"Have you tried Bud's?"

"The pub?"

"Yeah."

"No."

"Go there, that's where she is."

"How do you know?"

"Because she knows the owner. Unless she pulled out a pistol and gunned down more that five people, he wouldn't even call the police. If she wants to go somewhere that she can get hammered and strung out on crack, that's the place she would go…that's the place she _has_ gone. Are you in uniform?"

"No."

"Alright, just go in and ask to speak with Ryan. When you talk to him, tell him that you're a friend of mother's and mine and that you wanted to pick her up and take her back to your house to wind down. Don't mention anything about being an officer or they'll freak out. If he asks about me; I'm still at home, I just had to work and couldn't do it myself. If he asks where I'm working, tell him someplace like the mall or something, just somewhere non-seedy or he's going to know you're lying."

"How bad is this place?"

"Pretty bad. But listen; you can't do anything about it. Once you leave the back rooms, you didn't see one single thing out of order. It's all beer coolers and storage boxes as far as you're concerned. Just go in there and get her, okay?"

"Okay," he said, pausing. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let her get out like that. I didn't realize that she could get past the hospital security."

"Don't even worry about it, she's done this dozens of times, it's not your fault. Just make sure she's okay and take care of her for me, yeah?"

"Yeah, I will. I'm headed that way so I'll let you get back to eating."

"If there's anything wrong or if she's not there, call me back, okay?"

"Do I just need to call the number you gave me before you left or do you have one for me to get touch with just you?"

"No, I don't have my own phone, just call the school."

"Alright, I'm going to take care of her," he said just as the Professor, Scott, Jean, Storm, Rogue, Bobby and Logan began walking through the door.

"Okay, be carefully and I'll talk to you later," I said and then hung up the phone.

"Sorry to interrupt your phone call, but there's been a mutant attack in the Bronx area and we need to act on it fast," the Professor apologized to me.

"It's fine," I said, moving over to give Scott and Jean room on the couch. Bobby and Rogue took the other couch along with Storm and Logan sat on the arm beside me. "Is everyone okay? Is it serious or anything?"

"I'm not sure yet. But before we're started, how's your mother?"

"Someone's going to get her; she's going to be fine."

"Where is she?" Scott asked.

"Bud's, I think."

"Who's that?"

I laughed. Despite his being concerned, it was quite amusing that he knew so little about our lives to not know that Bud's was a pub instead of a person. "No, it's a place, a bar, pub type a few miles from our old house." I felt awkward discussing my mother in front of everyone. "Right, I'll leave and let you guys get to your…meeting, or whatever."

"You can feel free to stay, if you like?" the Professor said.

"Perhaps another time, but thank you," I said as I stood. "It was nice meeting you Logan," I told him, standing in front of him.

"Yeah, you too," he said with a small smirk as he slid down into my empty seat beside Scott.

"Bye guys," I said, walking to the door. "Be careful."

This was my first real experience with an X-Men mission. I had been filled in on everything about them so that I wouldn't panic if something were to happen and they had to leave, but it was still new to me and I couldn't help but worry some. I knew that they were all well trained in what they did, but the thought of the possibility that my uncle, aunt, or any of the others might not only get hurt but also possibly die, that got me just a _little_ freaked out.

* * *

I couldn't sleep. Uncle Scott, Storm and Bobby had left at around eight o'clock to go take care of the situation in the Bronx. It was after one in the morning and they weren't back yet. 

Was this normal?

Should it be taking them this long?

What if something happened to them, would anyone know?

My mind was racing and wondering and worrying to the point I couldn't rest. Not only that, but Officer Johnson hadn't called me back to say whether he had found my mother or not. I couldn't sleep.

I stood from my bed and slipped on my slippers that looked like monkeys. My pink pajama pants with pictures of cartoon frogs were baggy and puddle around my ankles as I walked. I took a ponytail holder from the top of my dresser and pulled my still semi-curly hair into a half ponytail. My bangs fell across my face, swaying in front of my left eye. I pushed them away, but they only fell right back. I took the old, worn out sweater from the back of my chair and pulled it on over my green T-shirt. I was sure that I looked like a six-year-old psycho-ward escapee. I didn't care, though. I was only going for a walk and it was after one in the morning. I wasn't really expecting to see anyone.

I left my room and went downstairs. I could be clumsy at times and I was afraid that if I fell in the hall, I would wake someone up. The better to fall where no one can hear me, I thought. The first floor of the school was dark, empty and quiet. There were a few lamps here and there so that I could see and I was thankful for it.

I walked to the back of the school and stopped in front of the double glass doors that led outside to the garden. I could see that the fog had thinned out and lifted some, but it still wasn't something I would want to be out in and prayed that Uncle Scott and everyone with him would come home safe.

"How's it lookin' out there?" asked a gruff voice from behind me. I spun around to see Logan. Despite it being quite and not expecting to meet anyone else down there, surprisingly, his voice didn't scare me.

"It's cleared up some, but it's still pretty bad," I said, my hand resting on a pane of glass in the door. "I'm worried about Uncle Scott being out in it."

"Don't worry 'bout Scooter. Don't much like the kid, but he knows how to handle the jet. I'll give him that," he said, walking closer to me.

I turned back to face the outside as he stopped beside me. "I've not seen him fly it yet."

"Did you ever find anything out about your mother?"

I looked back at him. Where was the crude man Scott had described? "No, that's why I'm up. I'm worried about Uncle Scott, her, too much for my mind to rest. I thought a walk might help."

"I'm sure she's fine. Someone would've called if anything was wrong, right?"

"I don't know." I let out a sigh and closed my eyes, shaking my head slightly. "I shouldn't have left her. I should be taking care of her."

"What's wrong with her?"

I opened my eyes and sighed once again. I saw him look me over and I did the same. He was wearing a white wife beater with a pair of navy blue sweatpants and he was a good five inches taller than I was. He stuck his hands into his pockets, I could see the muscles in his arms and on his chest through the fabric in his shirt, and I was quite impressed.

"She has some…problems."

"What kind of problems?"

I looked into his eyes. Could I tell him? Could I trust him with something so personal? I barely knew him and yet I felt comfortable with him. "She uh, she's addicted to alcohol and drugs. It started getting out of control right after my father died."

"When was that?"

"When I was eight, so seventeen years ago, I guess, or nearly. I'm not really great with the math." I smiled.

He smiled back at me lightly. "What happened to him?"

I pulled my hand from the glass door and folded my arms across my chest. "He died…and took my mother along with him when he did," I said, turning to face him. "That's my excuse, why are you up?"

"Couldn't sleep," he answered vaguely.

"Well, something tells me you don't care too much for Scott, so that rules out you being worried about him. So what's wrong with you? Why can't _you_ sleep?"

"Just gettin' used to bein' back. Thought I'd walk around a bit and make sure everything's alright."

I nodded my head. "Mind if I walk with you?"

He cocked and eyebrow at me. "Scooter said he didn't want me around you."

"Well dash what Scott said, he's one of the reasons I'm awake." He laughed. "If you won't tell, neither will I. And it's just a walk, if you can manage to corrupt me in that little time; I deserve it. Besides, you don't seem _that_ bad."

"Wait 'til you know me, darlin'," he said as he began walking down the hall from which I had just come. I followed, walking beside him. "You and Summers close?"

"No, sadly, not really. I think this is the most time I've ever spent with him. Mother isn't exactly…a supporter of mutants, I guess you could say. When Scott told the family he was one, I was only three. They shipped him off to here and I only saw him a few times after that."

"Why didn't you see him after you got older?"

"I had to take care of mother, she needs me."

"So why are you here now?"

"Because she was doing well and I was gullible enough to give her the money for our bills and rent. She blew it all on beer and coke. She then proceeded to get me fired and she was also arrested, all in the same night. Talented woman, my mother. Anyway, the man who arrested her was a friend of my family and he agreed to take care of her while I went away for a while. I just feel guilty for leaving her, though."

"Why?"

"Because she needs me."

"Are you sure she needs you, or do you need her?"

"Why would you think that I need her?"

"I don't know. Your father's dead, your uncle's up here, maybe you need her to need you as badly as a hit or a shot."

I opened my mouth to protest, but I didn't know how. Perhaps somewhere in my mind I always knew that's what it was, but I had never let myself believe it. I always said that she was the one who needed me, that she needed someone to take care of her and I was the only one who knew how to do it right. But the truth was, I wanted her to want me more than her drugs. I needed it and every time she chose them over me, I was let down once again.

I looked at the stranger beside me and wondered how he could see something that I had hidden so deeply inside that I didn't even admit it to myself? He saw it as though it were written on my face. Was it?

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Since yesterday," he said with a smirk.

"Ha-ha," I said dryly. "That's not what I meant."

"About four years."

"And you still don't like Uncle Scott?"

He made a low growling sound. "No."

That made me smile. "Why?"

"'Cause he's an uptight, self righteous pri-"

"Right, I get it," I said, interrupting him with a small laugh. "I do suppose he can be a bit uptight at times." He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Okay, so perhaps more than at times, but that's just Uncle Scott. That's how he was raised. He saw how my mother turned out from not following the family's rules and he didn't want to be like her. I suppose that he thinks it's better to perhaps be severe and uptight rather than being free spirited and non-caring."

"Perhaps," he said with a smirk.

"You know, you're not the first person to make fun of me for how I talk."

"Probably won't be the last."

For the next twenty minutes, we walked around the school in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable one, it wasn't that we didn't have anything to say, we just walked and allowed the quietness of the school to move us along.

"Would you rather; be stuck with Scott on a large, disserted island with no chance of being rescued, or in a small, confined space until you were both found?" I asked, breaking the silence.

He looked at me hard for a moment, not speaking and I wondered if he was thinking or refusing to answer. "A small space. Then I'd kill him and let them find me," he said with a bit of a smirk.

"Resourceful, but against the rules. You're not allowed to kill him."

"Why not?"

"Because the point is which is worse; living your life on a disserted island big enough for you to not have to be around Scott, but you never get to go home again or see any other people. Or being in a close space with him for a long time and possibly going out of your mind waiting to be rescued."

He grunted. "Could I knock him out?"

"No, you have to leave him as he is and listen to him talk the whole time, non-stop."

"I'd take the island." I laughed. "What about you?"

"I'd take the confined space," I told him as we came to the entrance of the lower levels.

"You should take the island, then you could keep me company."

I blushed. "Perhaps I will, then."

"Logan, I thought I made it clear that I didn't want you around my niece?"

I turned to see an obviously upset Scott came from the door to the lower levels, followed by a tired looking Bobby and Storm.

"I was, uh, we were just… How did it go in the Bronx?" I stammered, forcing a smile.

"Don't change the subject, Delia. You know that I specifically told both of you that I didn't want him around you-"

"Well, technically, I'm with him as he was walking around first and I asked if I could join him-"

"And what are you doing up anyway? It's nearly two in the morning."

"I couldn't sleep, I was worried about you."

He looked to Storm and Bobby. "Why don't the two of you go on up to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

"Okay, good night guys," Bobby said. Storm agreed and they both left the hallway, leaving in the elevator.

"Uncle Scott, I appreciate you letting me live here with you-"

"This is Chuck's house, kid, if anyone's lettin' you live here, it's him, not Summers," Logan said.

"All due respect, to everyone her, but I'm twenty-five, alright? I'm not a little kid. I don't need a baby-sitter. I've been taking care of myself since I was eight; I think I can handle it for a few months. I'm only staying until the summer and then I'm going back home to take care of mother."

"I thought you were going to let professionals take care of her?"

"No, when the find her, they're going to take her back to rehab and then when she's through, I'm going to go back home, get a job and get a new apartment.

"She needs help, serious help, which you can't give her."

"What do you think I should do then? Just stay here and leave her down there by herself? I can't leave her all alone."

"She can live in one of those houses they have for people who are getting better."

"She's forty-six years old, those girls in those houses are my age or younger, they're kids! She cannot live in one of them. And if she did, what would I do?"

"You can stay here."

"And do what? You don't trust me around him," I said, pointing to Logan. "Who else don't you trust me with? At least with Mother I could walk around the house without her yelling at me."

"That's because she's not there half the time and when she is, she's too out of it to care."

"You know what? Screw you, Scott. You don't know enough about either one of us to talk. Just because she hates you, doesn't mean that you automatically get to judge her," I spat, turning and walking away.

She was _my_ mother, it was _my_ personally life and he had _no_ right to say anything.

I couldn't stay there any longer, not with Scott being how he was. I would just go home early. I would figure something out; I would get a new job somewhere and my own house. I didn't need someone telling me what to do, I was an adult, whether I looked or acted like one all the time, it didn't matter. I was going to pack my things the next day and then go home…wherever that might be.

"Hey," I heard a voice come from behind me. I craned my neck over my shoulder and saw Logan following me.

"What?"

"You alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He swore, a laugh getting caught in his throat. "You and Summers just got into a fight."

"Yeah, well," I said, pressing the button for the elevator, "I'll be fine. I'm leaving as soon as I can."

"Why?" he asked, as the door opened and I stepped inside. He followed me.

"Because I refuse to live in a house where I get yelled at for walking around with someone. I'm an adult; I'll decide who I can be with. If I wanted to move off to Canada and have fifteen babies with you, that's my decision, not his." He gave me a cocked eyebrow. "Not that I will, but I could if I wanted."

"He's just pissed 'cause I'm back and he's takin' it out on you. Let him get used to me bein' back here before you decide to leave. All right?"

I looked at him hard. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," he said. I cocked my own eyebrow at him. "Look, I've just met you, I don't care what you do, but don't pack up and leave just 'cause you're fightin' with Scooter."

"What do you suggest I do then?"

He looked at me and smirked. "Stay here and piss him off."

"How might I do that?"

"Keep hangin' around with me, that might do it." The elevator stopped and the doors opened. He stepped out and looked back at me. "Think about it, kid," he said with a wink.

I stood there thinking until the elevator doors slid shut, pulling me from my thoughts. I pressed the button to open the doors again and stepped out. I walked down the hallway, trying to catch up with Logan.

"Hey," I called after him.

He turned around and let a small smile creep across his mouth. "Yeah?"

"You would hang out with me purely to annoy Scott?" I asked, propping my hands on my hips.

He raised his brow and scratched the back of his head as he rested his other hand at his waist. "I don't have anything else to do, so yeah."

I pursed my lips and twisted my mouth in thought. "All right, deal," I said, sticking out my hand for him to shake.

His small smile turned into a full on smirk. He took my hand and shook it. "Good, deal."

I slept well that night.


	3. Saint Valentine

Disclaimer: I actually bought rights to Marvel today...oh, wait, no...I would have to have _money_ to do that and I have no job...I couldn't buy the rights to a stick of gum... Oh well, enjoy anyway!

* * *

"Good morning, Delia. How are you today?" the Professor asked me as I walked to the staff table for breakfast.

"I'm doing well sir, thank you," I said, sitting at the opposite end of the table as Scott. I was still mad from our fight the night before and didn't want to sit near him.

"Delia, I was gonna' go to the mall later, do you wanna' go with me?" Rogue asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but as I did so, someone else began to answer for me. "She can't. She's goin' with me to the hockey game." It was Logan.

"What?" Scott asked, looking up at him with a mixture of confusion and distaste.

"I'm goin' to the hockey game and she's goin' with me," he said, sitting down beside me. "Right?" he asked with a smirk and a wink.

I let out a happy, yet guilty, sigh and smiled. "Yeah, my first hockey game."

"Absolutely not," Scott protested.

"I don't think you get much of a say in it, Scooter."

Rogue stared at the conversation unfolding in front of her. With the exception of Jean and the Professor, she was the only person sitting at the table who hadn't been there when Scott and I had started our argument. And Jean and Xavier both knew about it, whether from being told or just reading our minds, perhaps a bit of both. So I saw her watch the tension build between Logan, Scott and me with utter confusion. Scott and I hadn't been the best of relatives, but we had certainly gotten along well enough and what was happening was completely uncharacteristic of us both. Or so it seemed.

"So you're _not_ goin' shoppin' with me?" she asked.

"Not today, perhaps another time. Thank you, though."

"Delia, can I speak with you in the kitchen for a minute?" Scott asked, standing.

"Sure," I said, following him as he stood. "Excuse us everyone, we'll be back in a moment."

The two of us walked out of the dining hall, down the main hall and into the kitchen.

"What are you _doing_?" he asked, a furious whisper.

"I'm following you into the kitchen," I whispered back, matching his tone.

"That's not what I'm talking about. I told you to stay away from him and now the two of you are going to a _hockey game_? That doesn't seem like you're staying away to me."

"Well maybe I just decided to make my _own_ decisions; I am an adult you know?"

"I don't care if you were _fifty_; he is a bad influence."

"Why are we whispering?"

"I don't know," he said, his voice returning to its normal volume.

"Seriously Uncle Scott, I don't see what's so wrong with him."

"Well that's because you don't know him as well as I do."

"Maybe not, but I know me and I know that I'm not that easily influenced. If I was, I think I'd be a crack whore like mother."

"Hey," he warned.

"Sorry, very friendly drug addict." I rolled my eyes.

"Don't talk about your mother that way."

"She's _my_ mother."

"And she's _my_ sister."

"But she hates you, why can't you just hate her back?"

"I could ask you the same question, Delia, what would your answer be?"

I paused for a moment. "I hate those stupid glasses. I want to look in your eyes when we're talking."

"You didn't answer the question," he said quietly.

"Neither did you," I said just as quiet. We both stared silently at each other for a few minutes. "I'm going to leave soon, whenever I can get all of my stuff together and can get a way home."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't leave because of me. This is the first time you haven't had to take care of Katie in seventeen years and you should be relaxing and enjoying it, not worrying about what I tell you."

"So you want to tell me what to do, for me to disregard it, reprimand me for it and then just ignore it when you do?"

He let out a sigh. "No, you're right, you're an adult and if you want to hang around with Logan, then I guess you get to decide."

"I'm not going to take up drinking, or smoking, or swearing. I promise."

"It's not just that, he's seen a lot more than you. He used to be a cage fighter."

"So? Have you completely forgotten what my daddy did? I'm not some innocent little girl. I haven't been for a long time."

"You're supposed to me, though. You're my niece; I'm supposed to take care of you."

"And I appreciate you trying." I looked down and let out a sigh. "You're all I have left, Scott, I don't want to argue and fight with you."

"Arguing just shows that you care."

I looked back up at him with a smile. "And how does that figure?"

"If I didn't care about you, then I wouldn't waste my time arguing with you." He smiled.

"I'm sorry about what I said last night."

"What did you say?"

"I said screw you and that you didn't have the right to judge mother."

"You _should_ be sorry; you really never should say 'screw you', it doesn't sound right coming from you." I laughed. "Apology accepted. And I'm sorry too; I was tired last night. I just want to protect you and make sure that you're okay. You're all I've got left, too."

"So I get to go to the hockey game with Logan and you won't have a major heart attack?"

"Not a major one," he said with a smile. "Just be careful with him, okay? I don't want the two of you to start a relationship and have him completely break your heart."

"A relationship? One; we've just met, and two; the man's attractive but I don't want a _relationship_ with him. I don't want one with _anyone_ right now, I'm too young."

"Yes you are, just keep that in mind."

I smiled. "I will, I promise."

He walked over to me and gave me a hug. "I love you sweetheart."

"I love you too, Uncle Scott."

"Alright, let's get back to breakfast."

"Good idea."

Together we left the kitchen and went back to the dining hall to eat.

And that was it; we never had that discussion again.

* * *

"What's with the Wicked Witch get up?" Scott asked me after lunch.

"I'm wearing it to the hockey game. What's wrong with it?"

"You just look like a movie character."

I gave him a sideways glace from where I was putting away the chocolate milk into the refrigerator. "At what point in our entire history of knowing each other would you ever think it odd for me to dress like a movie character? I lived in a Rainbow Brite costume for the good part of my life as a five year old."

He looked over my outfit and shook his head.

I was wearing a black, tulle, knee length skirt, black tights, and black knee high boots with a bright green sweater. My hair was pulled into a ponytail with a black headband on top. My ode to the Wicked Witch of the West: the most misunderstood character in movie history.

"You're right, how silly of me." He laughed. "When are you guys leaving?"

"Half and hour, I think?"

"Okay, well, I have to get back to work. You two have fun and be careful, all right? Don't heckle the players too badly, okay?"

"Will you bail me out of jail if I get into a fight?" I asked with a smile.

"Absolutely not. I do believe that you keep reminding me that you're an adult, so I think you'll just have to find your own way out."

"And I thought that Nana raised a gentleman. Boy was I poorly informed." I smiled. "And anyway, hasn't any of Xavier's manners rubbed off on you? Now _he's_ a gentleman."

"Okay, so when you get sent to jail you can just call Uncle Charlie instead."

"That may have meant to be a joke, but you know that if I asked him, he would."

"You think I don't know that? The man took me in when I was thirteen and taught me almost everything I know. He did the same with Jean and Ororo. I owe him more that I have and I know that he wouldn't think twice about helping you if you needed it."

"Well, why do you think I'm here? He didn't hesitate to offer me a room when I called him and told him about my situation."

"He's a pretty good guy, I guess," he said with a smile, his dimples showing.

"Perhaps you did pick up a few things from him, then."

"You look like a ballerina goin' to a funeral," Logan said, walking into the kitchen. He was wearing pretty much the same outfit as he had been the day before, only a different colored button up shirt, with it actually buttoned, a blue jean jacket and a leather jacket over it all. He was an awfully attractive man, I thought. "That ain't what you're wearin' to the game, is it?"

"Well I was. Why, what's wrong with it?"

He quirked an eyebrow at me. "I thought I just said what was wrong with it?"

"Just be glad she's not dressed as a cartoon character today," Scott said as he was leaving the kitchen.

"She's not?" he asked, looking me over once again.

"Fine, I'll change," I said.

I left the kitchen and Logan followed me. We quietly walked up the stairs, down the hallway and to my room. I opened the door and he followed me inside. I took a pair of blue jeans from my closet and went into my bathroom to change. When I was done, I took the ponytail holder out of my hair and left my headband on the sink. I had been a bit over dressed, I suppose.

I exited the bathroom and pulled on my rain boots. I took a scarf from my closet, tied it around my neck, and then pulled on my long, black, wool coat.

"Better?" I asked.

Logan turned from where he had been looking at my nightstand.

"Yeah." He picked up a photo. "Who's this?" he asked, showing it to me.

I walked closer to him so that I could see it better, even though I already knew which picture it was. "That's my mother and me when I was little. She threw me an 'Almost Five' birthday party. I think it was just her and me, but she made a huge cake and bought me a present. They were these bright red, sparkly shoes that she had to look everywhere for. I was obsessed with 'The Wizard of Oz' and dressed up like Dorothy everyday and watched the movie. I wore them until the fell apart. She was fun before she got real bad." He looked at me and then back at the photo. "You don't want to hear about that, though. Let's go to the game."

We both left my room and I shut the door as I walked out. "So, do you know how the game works?" he asked, giving me a sideways glance.

"Sort of. I know that there are two teams and they're each trying to get the puck into the others nets without the goalie stopping them. That and it's men whacking each other with sticks and pretty much just beating each other."

"Sounds about right," he said with a small smile.

* * *

The game was fun. I screamed my head off and Logan got into a fight with some middle aged, bald guy and we were told to leave at the end. He then took me to get something to eat not too far away from the school.

"So, kid, you and Summers make up?" he asked as we were eating.

"Yeah, pretty much. Why?"

"Just wonderin' if you're gonna' need me to help you piss him off anymore?"

I let out a small laugh. "It wouldn't hurt to keep you around. You know, just in case."

He nodded his head slowly. "You get anything from him? I mean, aside from the holes in your cheeks?"

"They're called dimples, thank you very much, and if you're talking about genetics, then yes; I'm a bit more like him on the inside."

He stared at me quietly for a moment. "Like how?"

"My bones don't break." He gave me the eyebrow. "I don't bend like a pretzel or anything, if that's what you're thinking; they just don't break. It's not the coolest or most useful thing in the world, but we don't get to pick and choose, do we? Otherwise there would be a lot less of us, wouldn't there?"

"If you could choose, you would choose to be normal?"

"Yeah, wouldn't you?"

"No."

"Everyone hates us and you would choose to stay the same?"

"People hate me for worse reasons than that, doesn't make me wanna' 'em."

I nodded my head. "Mother always said that people were born to live a certain way, that we're given a life which we can't change and that if we try to, we'll be punished for it."

"Why?"

"Because she said that our lives and personalities are written in the stars and that they're wiser than us and if we try to take matters into our own hands, they'll remind us that they're in charge. She believes that we have no say in anything, that we have to follow how our lives are meant to be."

He stared at me intensely for a moment. "And what do you think?"

I paused for a minute, thinking. What did I believe? How did I feel? What were my opinions on my mother's life philosophy? People had asked me what I thought before; about my mother, my family, other various things, but there was something different about the way he asked me what I thought. He meant it. He wasn't asking a question just to fill time in a conversation, because he was someone who wasn't scared of silence; he was comfortable in it, he was used to it. He had spent years of his life by himself and silence came not only as a given, but was also welcomed. No, when he asked a question, it wasn't just mindless chatter; it meant something. That question as that moment was nothing particularly special, but his tone, the way he had asked it, it reached in and grabbed hold of my soul. What did I think? What did_ I_ think?

"I think that's just what she uses as an excuse for what she does. I think she hides behind her belief to justify actions that destroyed my childhood and ruined my adult life. I think in order for her to not feel guilty, she blames everything she does on it."

That's what I thought and no one, until him, had ever cared to ask and actually listen. I didn't know if he cared at the time, but he asked, and I know he listened. They look he gave me as he acknowledged my opinions and what I thought meant a lot and always stayed with me.

* * *

I had been at Xavier's school for a month and a half when Valentine's Day rolled around. Most people would assume that it would be my favorite holiday. However, I hated that day. What is so special about a day where _everyone's_ meant to be romantic? If my boyfriend…okay, if I _had_ a boyfriend, and he was going to proclaim his love to me, I wouldn't want it to be on the same day that everyone else was doing it. That's a bit cheap if you ask me. It was just a stupid holiday made up to make money.

Yes, I hated Valentine's Day.

"Good morning Delia," Jean said to me as I passed by her in the hall.

"Don't see what's so good about it," I grumbled, rushing down the stairs. I was late for breakfast and wanted to eat before they had everything cleared away.

I was late because I had spent time debating whether to be festive and wear pink or red or be a fuddy-duddy and wear black. After too much time trying on my clothes and looking at them in the mirror, I decided to ditch both color scheme ideas and went with blue instead. A blue T-shirt, blue jeans, my monkey house slippers and my old, gray, worn out sweater. I looked sad and probably a mess, so I braided my hair into pigtails in hopes of looking a little brighter. I then tied them off with blue ribbons. I was sure that no one gave my wardrobe as much thought as I did and wouldn't care if I came to breakfast in a burlap sack. But I enjoyed my outfits; they amused me, if no one else.

"You're late for breakfast," Scott said as I sat down in front of him.

"So are you, by the looks of it," I said, noting him as he spread mayonnaise onto a piece of raison bread toast. I shook my head in disgust. "I can't believe you still actually eat that stuff."

He looked up at me. "This coming from the girl who eats pickles on her peanut butter sandwiches?"

"It's good. That," I said, pointing to the bread, "is just wrong and gross."

We both ate quietly as the rest of the staff finished their breakfasts and left to start their days activities.

"Do you have any plans for this evening?" Uncle Scott asked.

"I'm going to stay in, eat a pint of ice-cream and attempt to find a good movie that doesn't involve anything romantic. How about you and Jean?"

"We're going out to eat and then to see some show she wants to see in New York City."

"What type of show?"

"Some ballet." I laughed. "Don't' laugh. When you get married, you'll understand doing things that you don't always want to do so that you can make the other person happy."

"Yeah, see, that's what I don't get about love; I don't think that I could sit through two hours of something I don't like, just to make someone happy."

"One day you will and then you'll have to eat your words." He smiled.

"And I'm just looking _so_ forward to that," I said sarcastically.

"Well, I've got to hurry and get to class or I'll be late. Have a good day."

"Yeah, you too," I said as he stood.

He left and I suddenly realized that I was the only person left in the pink, red and heart decorated room. It was almost enough to make me lose the breakfast I had just finished eating.

Valentine's Day was evil. I was sure of it.

* * *

I spent most of the day holed up inside my room. I attempted to take my mind of it anyway possible, but every time I turned on the TV or the radio, there was some sappy, romantic movie or song played. A little after six o'clock that afternoon, I decided that the only person who probably hated that day as much as I did was Logan. And so for that reason, I decided to make him a Valentine's Day card.

After a month of knowing Logan, we had become friends. I had thought perhaps somewhat reluctantly on his part to begin with, but the Friday after we met, he came knocking on my door, asking me to go get a milkshake with him. We had every Friday after it as well.

I would have spent more time with Uncle Scott, but he was always so busy and since Logan and I neither one worked, we had a lot of time to spend together. He was fun to talk to, when we talked, because despite how different we looked, we were actually a bit alike. Okay, so not _that_ much alike, our humor was about the same, but we got a long, to the surprise of nearly everyone in the school. And much to the dismay of Scott.

I took the sketchpad from the bottom drawer of my nightstand as well as some colored pencils, glitter pens and a pair of scissors. To begin with, I drew a Harley Davidson, a Fat Boy like my father used to ride, but it just looked kind of silly, so I threw it away. I then tried to draw an actual wolverine, but I wasn't really sure what they looked like and so it turned out looking like a coyote on crack. I threw it away as well. After an hour and a half of trying to come up with a cute and witty design, I decided to just sell out and draw a heart. It took me twenty minutes to sketch and color the card for him. It wasn't the best drawing I had ever done, it was actually pretty simple, but it wasn't too shabby. It was a pink, sparkly heart with a lace outline drawn around it. I then wrote a short poem inside and was done with it.

It was nearly eight o'clock when I got through and I assumed that everyone who was going out had already left and that it would be fairly safe for me to go downstairs without having to witness a mush fest of love. I grabbed the box of chocolates from my dresser and the card that I had just finished and made my way downstairs. It didn't take me long to find Logan, he was in the den watching TV.

"Hello Logan. Decided to stay in tonight instead of going out and picking up lonely, desperate woman in bars?"

"Yeah," he said, watching me as I plopped down into the seat next to him. "What about you? Couldn't find a date?"

I grunted. "Didn't want one. I hate this holiday, it's stupid."

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Really?" he asked skeptically.

"Yes, it's just a stupid holiday made up because there was nothing going on in February. I don't understand why they should devote a day to a guy who was thought to be a pedophile and then one day decided to declare his love to an adult woman. Then he got himself beheaded and the whole situation just doesn't seem like cause for celebration to me."

"He was a pedophile?" he asked, his eyebrow still raised in skepticism.

"I think so. I heard that somewhere once…" I sighed. "Anyway, the card is for you and the chocolate is for me," I said, handing him the folded paper. "But I'll share if you want."

He opened the card and read it. He then looked at me with a blinking stare. "What the heck is maple surple?"

"It's the only thing that rhymes with purple."

"But why does it have to rhyme with purple?"

"Because 'Roses are red, violets are blue' doesn't make sense as violets are actually purple. So, 'Roses are red, violets are purple, you're as sweet as maple surple' rhymes _and_ makes sense."

"No it doesn't 'cause 'surple' ain't a real world."

"Well sorry furry-face, but that's what you get."

He stuck it into the pocket of his blue jeans. "Thanks kid. Gimme' one of those chocolates."

I opened the box and sat it down on the couch in the space between us. "What are you watching?"

"Boxing. The match is about to start."

"Who's fighting?"

"Don't know."

"Don't care?"

"It's the only thing on that ain't all that romantic crap."

We were both quiet for a while as they introduced the boxers (I had never heard of either one), and they began the first round.

"My daddy wanted me to be a boxer," I said.

I saw him look at me from the corner of my eye. "You don't look like one."

"I'm not."

"Why did he want you to be one?"

"Because that's what he was, he fought for a living."

He looked back to the screen. "What happened to him?"

He had asked me that question the night we met and when I had avoided it, he didn't ask me again. Maybe I just wanted to talk to someone about it; it had been so long since I had even been able to bring it up. Maybe it caught me off guard and I just told him before I could stop myself. Or maybe, odd as it was, I was finally beginning to trust someone enough to tell them. Whatever the reason, I found myself telling him about my father.

"He died during a match. The guy he was fighting against had already killed a guy a few months before, but he had enough money to get out of it. Daddy was fighting him because no one else would and so they were going to pay him well for it. They had made it to the fifth round, daddy was wearing him down, they were both just so tired, but they kept going. The other guy realized he couldn't beat him going the way that he was, so he cheated. Daddy's manager pulled his chair out for him to sit on and the guy pushed him. He fell on the stool, broke his back, and damaged his brain stem. His brain stem swelled and filled with blood. He went into a coma and after a week, he eventually died. I used to know everything there was to know about boxing, but after he died, mother got rid of everything that had to do with him and I wasn't allowed to watch it again. I've forgotten nearly everything about it… I've even forgotten what he looked like. Isn't it funny how that happens? I spent eight years of my life with him and now I barely remember him," I said. I shook my head. "I remember how he smelled. That he wore a maroon polo shirt all the time. He bought me my first sketchpad when I was six and I remember him hanging my picture that I had drawn of our dog up on the refrigerator. He was so proud of it. This was his old sweater, he wore it whenever he was at home and right after he died, I would wrap myself up in it and cry myself to sleep." I sighed. "How do we forget people like that? When they're so important to us?"

"I don't know."

I turned my head from where I had my eyes trained on a spot on the wall. He was looking at me, his eyes locked with mine the moment I turned them towards his. He stared at me, not saying anything, he didn't have to; I understood what he was thinking. There were important people in his life that he had long forgotten, too. And he, like me, had only fracture memories of them, to not comfort, but to haunt you. To tease and taunt you because you can't remember them even though you know it's somewhere in your mind. And when you see someone, some stranger walking past you on the street, you have a fleeting memory that that's how they looked. When you smell something in the air that reminds you of how they smelled. Little things that set you off but can never bring the whole thing together. It's like a slow form of torture.

As if he felt that I was reading his mind by staring so deeply into his eyes, Logan looked away. He picked up the remote and turned the TV channel.

"Why are you turning it?" I asked.

"I didn't think you would wanna' watch it after that."

"Don't. I want to watch it. Like I said; mother wouldn't let me watch them after daddy died. It haven't seen a match in seventeen years. Spare me the Valentine's Day much and let me watch it with you."

He looked back over at me, the seriousness still in his eyes. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm positive," I said, popping a piece of chocolate into my mouth. I let out a sigh and curled up onto the couch. I felt so much better just talking about it, getting it off my chest and knowing that I had someone to talk with, if I needed to.

I looked at Logan and remembered something my mother had told me only once, when I was much younger. We were both getting ready to go to my father's funeral. I hadn't thought about it in ages, but as I sat there quietly, just watching the match and him, I remembered it. She told me that when we're born, we're linked to someone, somewhere else. She said that part of our life's journey is to find and recognize who they are. They don't have to be romantic figures in our lives, or specific gender, or age. They can be our lover, friend, teacher, mentor, student, whatever, but the souls are perfect matches of one another. It's why we're attracted to other people for what seems like no reason. There's something we feel but can't see or describe. Mother told me that losing daddy wasn't_ like_ a piece of her had died, it really had. A part of her was missing because the two of them were meant from the time they were born.

I didn't know if she was right, she had been so few times in my life, but she had always believed so strongly in what she thought. I had to wonder if there might have been a hint of truth to what she had told me so many years before, because as I sat there by Logan, I felt that if I could ever imagine that my soul had a match, his would be it.


	4. Sunrise, Sunset

Disclaimer: I own no rights to Marvel. It's a short(er) chapter today because I'm going to see Bo Bice in concert tonight and I don't have a lot of typing time. But I do get to stand out in the near freezing cold for about three hours, so go me! Please enjoy!

* * *

Sometime around midnight, after Logan and I had finished off my box of chocolates and had watched too very boring boxing matches, he suggested going out and getting something to eat.

"Nothing's open this late," I said.

"Waffle House."

"Yes and the only people there this late at night are stoners."

"You know, most people don't argue when someone offers to buy them dinner," he said, standing. "We can celebrate that Valentine's Day is officially over until next year."

"I can do that," I said, standing and following him from the den. We quietly went upstairs where I got ready in my bedroom to go out into the cold. Before we left, I grabbed a piece of paper and an ink pen.

"What are you doin'?" Logan asked.

"I'm writing a note for Uncle Scott."

"Why?"

"Well, in case something happens and he gets up looking for me, he'll know where I am and that I'm alright."

"No you're not."

"I'm not?"

"No," he said, walking over to me and snatching the pen and paper from my hands. "You're gonna' go somewhere and do something without tellin' anyone where you are."

"Why?" It was my turn to ask the question.

"'Cause you spend all your time worrin' about other people, let them worry about you for a while."

"I can't do that," I protested.

"Yes you can."

"All right, fine, I won't write a note but if I get in trouble, it's your fault."

"That's the thing, kid; you're twenty-five, you can't get in trouble for doin' something like goin' out at night. Scooter might get mad about it, but what's he gonna' do? Ground you. We ain't breakin' any rules, so we can't get into any trouble."

"Why is it that I don't believe you when you say we won't get into any trouble? Oh, wait, I remember; it's because it's you saying it," I said sarcastically.

He tugged at my ski-cap, pulling it down over my eyes. "Careful darlin' or I might make you buy my dinner."

"You're well aware of the fact that I'm a poor little girl, right?" I asked, fixing my hat back properly. "If I were buying, you would get water and ketchup." I heard a gruff laugh break from his body. "And besides, it's not as if you've ever given me a reason to believe that you know how to go out in public without getting into a fight, so don't even pretend to take offence to that."

* * *

After sneaking from the house as quietly as possible, we took a car from the garage and drove to the Waffle House. It was only about a fifteen or twenty minute drive from the school and so we got there a little before one in the morning. As I had suspected, the restaurant was full of people who were high or drunk, or both. 

Oncewe were seated, we ordered the same thing; pancakes, sausage, bacon and a side order of hash browns. After about ten minutes, they brought the food out to us and our already slow conversation ebbed even slower as we ate.

I had always felt uncomfortable in silence. I felt as though if it were quiet, it meant you couldn't think of anything to say, you didn't know how to carry a conversation. But since I had met Logan, he had taught me that this is so much more that can be said in silence. That you don't have to speak to be heard. I was aware that I had only known him for a month, but the importance of being quiet seemed to be a lesson that he was secretly trying to teach me. And although I understood that I didn't _have _to talk with him, I had a hard time not doing it. Silence wasn't really part of my genes.

"Okay, there's something that's been on my mind for a while that I have to ask you. I heard it in passing and to be quite honest with you, I don't even remember who said it-"

"Yeah, what did you wanna' ask?" he said, trying to speed me up.

"Oh, right," I said, sitting up straight in the booth and tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "Did you used to have the hots for my aunt Jean?"

He blinked at me and a small smirk threatened to spread across his mouth. "Yeah."

"Before or after she got married."

"Both."

I shook my head. "That is _so_ weird."

"She's not really your aunt, kid."

"Not by blood, no, but Uncle Scott's known her since I was three, and I've known her nearly as long as I've known him, so she's just like family to me." I shook my head again. "That's just weird."

"Are you done?" he asked with a slightly cocked eyebrow.

"What? With my food or talking about how weird it is for you to find Jean hot?"

"Both," he answered again.

I pushed around what was left of my hash browns on my plate with my fork and let out a sigh. "Yeah, I suppose so," I said.

"Good, let's get out of here, then."

That was another thing that I was learning about Logan; he was all about right now. Can't sleep? Get up and do something. Time to work out? Go straight to the gym. Done eating? Get up and leave. I, however, enjoyed just sitting and relaxing at times. He was all about getting things done.

He paid and then we left, but once we got home, we decided to take a small detour.

"You tired yet?" he asked as we pulled up to the gates of the school.

"Not really. Are you?"

"No."

And that was all he needed to know. He turned around and then we drove. We drove to a small hillside section, away from the city. There were a few picnic tables here and there and so we got out and sat on top of one.

"You can actually see the sky up here," I said in amazement, shifting so that I was sitting closer to Logan. Although the weather wasn't quite as cold as it had been upon my arrival, it was still around thirty or thirty-five degrees outside at nearly four that morning and I wanted to stay as warm as possible. "Would you rather die by freezing to death or from heat exhauster?" I asked, looking up at the moon.

He made a low grunting sound as he lit a cigar. "I'd freeze."

"Really? Why?"

"In the heat you dry up, get sick, thirsty. I don't mind the cold, so it wouldn't be that bad." He let out a long string of smoke rings. "What about you?"

"You bring up good points so I think I would have to agree with you on that one."

"That's a first."

"Hey, I agree with you on quite a bit, I just don't like to admit it." We both laughed and then quieted back down again. But my mind was reeling with a thousand thoughts that the open space we were in seemed to let roam freely and grow. I couldn't quite contain them and so one finally escaped and found its way to my lips. "What do you think death is like?" I almost whispered.

"I think it's different for everyone."

"But do you think people are scared when they die or are they peaceful?"

He didn't say anything for a moment as he thought. Finally, he let out a sigh and ran his hand back through his hair. "I wanna' tell you that everyone's alright with it when they die, but I've been there a few times and I didn't like it, kid. Maybe other people are ready and they're fine with it, I don't know." He shook his head and let out a long, deep sigh. "I don't know what you want me to tell you, darlin'."

"I wanted you to tell me that. I want to hear your opinion on it, that's what I asked. I like knowing what _you_ think, not what you think I want to hear."

"Really?"

"No, I'm just saying that to make you feel better about yourself, I know you have a bad ego." I laughed.

"Well, thanks for bein' so thoughtful," he said sarcastically. "You cold?"

I was shivering slightly. "A little bit, yeah."

"Scoot over here." I did as he said and he draped his arm around me, pulling me close to him. "Better?"

"Yep," I said, snuggling up to him, inhaling his cologne. "Much better."

He laughed. "Good."

We fell into a long silence again. I didn't know what he was thinking, probably something dark and complex, but being the dork that I am; all I could think about was that I had never been that close to him before. Despite the cold weather, he was quite warm and I found myself getting comfortable beside him.

It was beautiful outside that night. All of the stars were out and I couldn't see a cloud in the sky. The moon was nearly full and shining, making the snow that covered the ground seem to glow from the light of it. I hadn't been outside long enough to appreciate the scenery in far too long. When I was younger, my daddy would take me outside right as the sun was setting and we would sit on the porch swing of our old house as he told me stories until I fell asleep. After he died, I couldn't go out there anymore and eventually stopped paying attention to how beautiful everything was. Not even just the outside, but everything in general.

Instead of seeing the beauty in a child with their parent, I envied them for having something I didn't.

I no longer saw the beauty in believing in a faith when that had been the very source of so many of my problems.

How could I find something like life beautiful when people had been taken away from me too early in theirs and I had never been able to live mine?

'Beautiful' was rarely a word I used in my vocabulary because to me, it had lost all of its meaning. That morning, however, I remembered what it meant. Logan and I sat, not talking, until the sun came up. It reminded me of the day I first met him and had gone to the woods to see it rise. But out there, without any of the trees in the way, it was amazing.

"Isn't it funny that a sunrise is something so natural, it happens every day, but it's always beautiful?" I said, though neither of us was laughing. My voice cracked some from being in the cold and not speaking for a few hours. "It's just the sun, it's what keeps us from freezing over and it's always the same, but it's always amazing."

"Yeah. We better start back home," he said, standing. He gave me his hand and helped me down from the picnic table. I tripped coming down and fell against his chest as he caught me.

I looked up at him and laughed. "I suppose the only downside to being as fit as you is that you're not too squishy to land on," I joked.

"No one's ever complained before," he said, helping me to stand upright.

"Oh trust me; I'm not complaining in the least bit. I'm just saying that you're not squishy."

"Which is good?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow. Why was it that he could do that so well that it nearly took my breath away every time he did?

"It's definitely not bad." I was sleepy and getting reckless with my words. "I think you're hot." Wait, stop, rewind…did I just tell him that I thought he was hot? "I don't mean that…well, actually I do, but I didn't actually mean to _say_ it."

He laughed. "Don't worry about it."

I let out a sigh. "I need a nap."

"A nap? I'm gonna' need more than a nap."

"I would like some hot chocolate, cold pizza and then to sleep until one."

"Hot chocolate and cold pizza?" he asked with a disgusted look on his face, looking at me across the top of his car.

"Don't knock it until you try it."

"I don't have to try 'Ro's tofu, rabbit food stuff she eats to know it tastes like crap. So obviously that doesn't hold up too well."

I let out a small laugh as I got into the car. "That's true, you win that one."

He got into the car and started it up. "I never lose, darlin', I just let you think you're winnin' one once in a while," he said with a wink and a smile.

I think I lost a bit of my heart to him that day.

* * *

It was nearly eight o'clock when we got home that morning. We assumed that everyone would be in the dining hall eating, so we went upstairs assuming that we wouldn't run into anyone or that they would notice the two of us missing from breakfast. But assuming is a dangerous thing and should never be relied upon.

We assume that our cars will work when we get into them. However, someone may have snuck out and rewired it to make tasty, fruity, mixed drinks instead.

We assume that our bed is where we left it when we wake up and get out of it in the morning. But someone may have taken it and placed it in a tank full of sharks while we were sleeping.

We assume that we know how to retie our shoes should they come untied, when in actual fact we could have been hypnotized to trip the next person we see whenever our shoes do come untied and don't remember how to retie them at all.

Although tasty, fruity drinks are not dangerous, it's never safe to assume, as we had going into the house.

We had made it upstairs and passed the student hall when we assumed that we wouldn't have to see anyone until we had gotten some sleep first. We were wrong. We made our way down the stag hall as quietly as possible. I was quite surprised at how silent Logan could be, considering all of the metal on his body. I was about to comment on this as we drew closer to our rooms. Only seven more doors until mine. Six. Five. Creak.

"Sshh," I warned.

"Where in the world have you been?" a voice boomed from behind me. I spun around to see Uncle Scott standing in the doorway of his room.

"Oh snap."

"Oh snap's right," he said, walking up to and stopping in front of us. "When you didn't show up for breakfast, either of you," he said with a furious glare in Logan's direction, "I came up to check on you. When neither of you were in your rooms, I looked all of this school, searching for you. Where were you?"

"We went out to get something to eat," Logan answered.

"At what time?"

"Uh, this morning, sometime," I stammered.

"What _time_ Delia?" Scott demanded.

"Midnight," I said quietly.

"When?"

"I said around midnight, a little after."

"_Midnight_?" he yelled.

"I brought her back in one piece Scooter, it's fine."

"No, it's not _fine_ Logan to take my niece out at midnight and not tell anyone where you're going. That's irresponsible."

"I told you I should have left a note," I muttered to Logan. He let out a low growl in my direction.

"And it's almost eight in the morning. What took so long?"

"The traffic was the devil this mornin'."

I let out a small laugh and attempted to hide it with my hand. It didn't work.

He turned his glare to me. "What took so long?" he asked again.

"Well, we went to eat, like we said, but when we were done, neither of us were tired. So we drove up to a hillside picnic area and waited for morning so we could watch the sun come up. Then we came back."

He looked at me for a little longer before turning to look at Logan, and then back to me. "Really?"

"Yeah, we didn't go anywhere or do anything else. I promise Uncle Scott."

"Look, I'm not happy about this in the least bit, but you both look dead on your feet so get some sleep and I'll talk to you after work."

"Alright, thank you," I said, watching him turn to leave. Logan shot me a smirk and turned in the opposite direction, towards his room. "I'm going to get in so much trouble hanging out with you. He was right; you are a bad influence on me," I said, following him.

"Go to bed, kid, you look like crap," he joked, pausing at his door, curiously straight across the hall from mine.

I opened the door to my own room and stood with half of my body inside and half out in the hallway. "Oh shut up. Just because you somehow manage to look incredibly gorgeous when most people look like crap, like me, it doesn't mean you get to pick on me."

He let out a small laugh and shook his head. "'Night, Delia."

"Shouldn't it be _morning_?"

"Mornin' then."

I smiled. "Goodnight Logan."

* * *

Uncle Scott gave us both a 'good talking to' when we woke up later that day, but Jean told him to go easy, we were just having fun. That only threw him into a speech about knowing the difference between having fun and being irresponsible. He and Logan spat back sarcastic and rude comments and remarks to one another through the whole thing. Scott threw in that he was the team captain and my uncle, so he had some say in what Logan did.

Logan growled out that he didn't care if the 'freakin' Queen of England was captain' of the X-men, he didn't have to take orders from anyone. He also said that the only time Scott ever acknowledged that he was my uncle was when he (Logan) and I were hanging around with each other. This caused another battle of comebacks and retorts that I didn't feel like hearing, so I left.

After the meeting, I decided to do the 'mature' thing and give them both the silent treatment for a few days. However, since Logan didn't mind my not talking so much, I left the room every time he came in, so he would know that I was mad. A few days turned into a few more and after two weeks of ignoring them both, I had been shopping more times with Rogue, Jean and Storm that I ever needed. My closet, which was too full to begin with, was overflowing. But most importantly, I was bored. I missed being around them both. Awkwardly, I missed Logan more. I had somehow gotten closer to him than I ever had been with Scott. Perhaps the whole point of having the fight with them was to realize how good of a friend Logan had become to me. He had become the person to whom I poured out my heart and thoughts. He was something different altogether and I missed him…a lot.

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night. (I've always wanted to write that!) Well, it _was_ dark and it _was_ stormy, but I suppose it was dark because it was night. Anyway, I was awake at nearly one o'clock that morning, which I suppose was because of the storm. Everything all tied in somewhere, somehow. Except for one thing; my fear of storms. I didn't mind snow, ice, rain even, but the sound of thunder and the sight of lightening stirred up a fear inside of me that I wasn't quite sure of where it came. I had been scared of them for years, and as I lay in bed, trying to remember if there was reasoning behind it until a clap of thunder, closely followed by a flash of lightening, caused me to jump in my bed and jarred me from my thinking.

That was it; I couldn't take it. I got up, grabbed one of my pillows, left my room and went straight across the hall. I knocked on the door lightly, but there was no answer. Have you ever had one of those times that's just awkward and you're not sure what to do? I needed to knock on the door louder in order for Logan to hear me, but if I knocked any louder, I risked the possibility of waking up other people. I did a semi-pace/dance outside the front of his door, wondering what to do when another loud BOOM of thunder came ringing through the air.

"Screw this," I muttered, opening Logan's door and walking in.

A bolt of lightening flashed outside of his window and lit up the room with a pale, dim light. It didn't last long, but it was enough to allow me to see him. He was lying in his bed, on his stomach, stretched out in his tangled covers. I approached him timidly, wanting both to let him sleep and wake him at the same time. I placed a hand on the shoulder of the arm that lay slack by his face and shook it lightly.

"Logan…Logan…"

He lifted his head sleepily and looked up at me. "What's wrong? You alright?" he questioned, sounding worried.

Another clap of thunder sounded off above us. The storm was right over the school. I jumped slightly. At the next flash of lightening, I was sure that he could see the fear on my face.

"I was wondering, if maybe, if you don't mind, I might perhaps…stay in here with you until the storm passes?" I asked, clinging to my pillow.

He rolled over and sat up. He looked at me with a sleepy, yet quizzical look that was all Logan as he cocked an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

My bangs swished in front of my face as I shook my head, slightly embarrassed. "Nothing."

"You're really _this_ scared 'cause of the storm?" I felt my cheeks flush hot as I nodded my head 'yes'. "All right then, yeah, I don't mind if you stay in here," he said, rearranging his bed so that I could have room to lie down. I placed my pillow where he had just had his and crawled in, facing him where he lay on his side.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Don't worry about it, darlin'."

"But you didn't have to do this. I haven't even spoken to you in over two weeks, you could have told me to go back to my room."

"No, I don't blame you for ignorin' me. You still mad at me, though?"

I shook my head. "No, you and Uncle Scott are allowed to argue, I guess. I shouldn't have gotten mad at either one of you to begin with. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We were both bein' jackasses, you just got caught in the middle of it."

"So we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good."

More thunder and I jumped again. He placed his hand on my arm. "It's only thunder, it's not gonna' hurt you."

"I know, I know," I said as the flashing of lightening filled the room once again. I let out a small whimper.

He smiled at me. "Why are you scared of 'em?"

"I…I don't know, I don't remember."

"Well let's not think about it, alright?"

"Yeah, okay."

"All right, uh…what've you been up to?"

I laughed. "This so isn't going to work."

"I'm tryin', you got a better idea?"

"No, I know you are. I uh…I've been shopping, and that's about it…" My laughing stopped. "I've really missed you," I admitted.

He stared at me and removed his hand from my arm. "Yeah, me too."

"Better not let Uncle Scott hear you say that," I teased.

"Why do you care about what he thinks?" he asked seriously.

"He's the only family I have up here. And aside from mother, he's _all _I have."

"What about your grandparents?"

"They died a few years ago. I wasn't really close to them anyway, though. They thought mother was a hippie and Uncle Scott was a freak. They hated him."

"What about you?"

"They didn't know about me. My mother doesn't either."

"Why?"

"Because, like I just said; they all hated Uncle Scott, mother still does. I can't let her hate me for that."

"What can you let her hate you for, then?"

"I don't let her, she just does."

"Why?"

"I was the reason she moved back to Connecticut, even though she hated it there. She thinks that I interfere in her life by trying to get her help. Truth is, she doesn't think she needs it, that's why she never tries. I just get _so tired_ sometimes, worrying about her and I think about just giving up on her. But then I think about her and know that I can't," I said, pausing for a moment to keep myself from crying. "She hates me for not being the one to die instead of daddy. She never wanted to have me in the first place, I ruined her freedom and tied her to a place that she had tried to run away from. That's why she left me so much; she didn't want to have to look at me and be reminded that I was the one still alive."

I couldn't hold back the tears and he pulled me to him, allowing me to sob into his bare chest. "Sshh," he whispered. "It's alright." He rubbed circles on my back with his hand and he gently soothed me, continuing to whisper to me that it was all right.

I forgot about the storm after that.


	5. Running Scared

Disclaimer: I do not own any right to Marvel or Fox or whoever else has their hand in the X-Men stuff.

Sidenote: I apologize for this chapter being late. After standing in line, out in the freezing cold for three and a half hours to see Bo Bice (it was well worth it), I got to see him and ending up standing for over nine hours total, but by the time I got home, I was too tired to finish it. Once I did,the site was acting up a little bit and so I've been trying to upload this chapter fortwo days now. I hope it was worth the wait! Please enjoy!

* * *

I woke the next morning to the sound of rain. It was soothing and I nearly fell back to sleep, until some of the rain shut off and I realized that it was the shower instead. The real rain, I realized, was only a dull pound on the roof and windows.

I took one of Logan's pillows and curled up in the blankets. Everything felt nice and comfortable and I allowed myself to sink into the bed. It was my favorite part of the day. I drifted in and out of a lazy sleep until I heard the door to the bathroom open and Logan came out.

"Mornin' darlin'," he said, walking to the other side of the bed. I grunted out a 'hello' and he laughed.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He was wearing blue jeans and nothing else. "What time is it?" I mumbled.

"Almost eight."

It was a Sunday so I didn't worry about missing breakfast; it would start for another hour.

I let out a sigh. "I don't want to get up. Your bed's more comfortable than mine."

He sat down beside me and kicked his feet up on the bed, scooting down until he was eyelevel with me. "I was thinkin'," he said, propping his head up with his arms and staring up at the ceiling.

"Well, we should alert the school: I do believe that's cause for celebration," I joked sarcastically.

"You wanna' hear what I was thinkin' or not?" he quipped.

"Yes, go on."

"Last night you were talkin' about your grandparents but you didn't say anything about your father's parents."

"That's because I never knew them. Daddy never saw or spoke to them, as far as I can remember. He never talked about them, either. Why were you thinking about that, though?"

"'Cause you said Scooter was the only family you had aside from your mother. I thought if you had some other family, you wouldn't care so much about what he thought."

"I don't even know if they're still alive."

"Have you ever tried lookin' for 'em?"

"No. No one ever said anything about them and they weren't from Connecticut, so I just never tried to find them."

"Where were they from?"

"I don't know. Daddy was from New York, so probably somewhere around there."

"_There_? Darlin', we're _livin'_ in New York."

I rolled over and saw the amused look on his face. But however amused he may have been, I felt foolish for having never thought about looking for them. They rarely entered my mind, and if they did, it was only a fleeting thought. I lay there thinking about it and was shocked by the fact that I possibly had a whole other family that I didn't know about.

"I have to go talk to the Professor," I said, standing from the bed.

"You want me to go with you?" he asked as I got to the door.

"No, I'm fine. Thanks, though. I'll see you down at breakfast, yeah?"

"Yeah," he said standing. "I'll see you later."

"Not if I see you sooner," I joked, walking into the hall. I hear him mutter something I couldn't understand as his laughter disappeared behind his door as I closed it.

I started down the hall in a hurry. I was on a mission; Find Chuck. If I had family somewhere, he would know. Aside from being a very gifted psychic, the man was also a genius with some crazy connections and a selfless attitude. I was going to need him if I was ever going to find anyone.

Did I have grandparents still, or where they dead. If they were alive, did they know that they had a granddaughter? What if they did, what if they knew about me all along and didn't _want_ to meet me?

Was daddy an only child or did he have siblings? What if I had aunts and uncles that I never knew about? As far as I had known, Scott was the only uncle I had, but with as much as I knew about daddy, I could have had more.

What if I had cousins I never knew? What if _they_ had kids, I could be an aunt and never know…oh wait, no, I would have to have a sibling of my own with a kid to be an aunt. Never mind, I should have slept longer.

I was so wound up in my sleep-confused thoughts, that I didn't notice Uncle Scott until I nearly ran into him.

"Hey, have you seen Professor Xavier? I need to speak to him."

He looked at me for a moment, looking confused by the fact that I was actually talking to him. "Uh, yeah, he's in his office," he said.

"Okay, thank you!" I said, starting back down the hall, then I turned around and ran back to him. I gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you anymore. I love you."

He kissed me on top of my head. "I'm sorry and I love you, too," he said.

"I'll see you at breakfast," I told him, turning around and going back down the hall.

I dodged students on my way down the stairs and jogged lightly to the Professor's office. I knocked on the closed door once and paced back and forth until he called me in. "I don't mean to interrupt, sir, are you busy?"

"No, I'm just grading some papers from Friday's Physics test. Please, have a seat," he said, motioning to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

I sat down and ruffled my hair. I was still in my pajamas and probably looked a fright, but my state of urgency hadn't given me time to change. "Sir, this may seem like an odd request and I don't know if you can help me or not, but I was wondering if you might help me try to find our about my father's family?"

"I thought that's what you were here for," he said, wheeling out from behind his desk to beside me.

"Well, can you?" I asked timidly, scared of his answer.

"I can try, yes. I can't promise you any results, though."

"I know."

"May I ask why you want to find them now?"

"Logan and I were talking last night about my family and this morning he asked about _them_. I said I didn't know them. I had forgotten that they were from here, or that I was living here, or something, I don't know." I paused for a moment and let out a sigh. "I hate to sound pessimistic Professor, but I know my mother, I saw her before I left and…she's not going to last much longer, not the way she's going. When she dies, Scott will be all I have left. And that's only given that he doesn't get killed on some mission by some psychopathic mutant. I need to know my other family because if I lose both of them, then I won't have anyone left. I'll be all alone. And as strong as I try to be, I don't know how to be on my own. I need people, whether to take care of them or for them to take care of me, and when both of them are gone, I'll be by myself. I don't know _how_ to be by myself."

He smiled at me kindly. "I will help you the best that I can."

"Thank you."

"Do you know your grandparent's names?"

"Uh…" I said, biting my lip as I thought hard. I had thought more about them that morning than I ever had. I had to think hard to try to pull a memory from my mind of when my mother and daddy were having a conversation and were talking about two people that I could only assume where daddy's parents. "I think their names are Joseph and Eliza Walker. My father was from New York, but I'm not sure of what part. Uh…that's all I know or remember; they never talked much about either one of their families."

"Give me some time and I will try to do my best."

"All right. Thank you very much, I really appreciate this," I said standing. "I know you're really busy and this means a lot to me."

"I'm sure I'm not as busy as I seem," he smiled.

"Well thank you anyway," I said, walking towards the door.

"Oh, and Delia," he said, stopping me before I left his office. I turned back to face him. "No matter what happens, you will always have a home here, no matter who you lose or find. I want you to know that."

A home, a solid home, that's what he was offering me. I didn't know quite how to process that information and was afraid that if I did, I might get slightly more emotional that I ever wanted to get in front of the Professor. And so I just nodded my head and left his office without another word.

* * *

I felt awkward for the next couple of days. Somewhat unsettled, I guess. What the Professor had said as I was leaving after asking him to help me was my reason for feeling that way. He said that the school could be my home. I wasn't entirely sure that he realized I couldn't have a home. Whenever I attempted to get comfortable some place and settle in to make it my home, something happened for it to be taken away from me. This, although just a theory, was a proven one. I knew that it was my mother who usually brought the situations on to help further, or even create, the problems for which we always have to leave. I was well aware that my mother was not there and in all reasoning shouldn't have been worried about losing my 'home', but I was. Actually, scratch the worried; I was down right scared.

I was sitting in the den with Logan, Storm, Rogue, Bobby, Jean and Uncle Scott watching some TV show on home renovation. I wasn't paying much attention and barely noticed when Logan, who was sitting on the couch furthest from the others with me, reached over and attempted to take one of my cookies. I was in a daze, staring at the TV, but not really watching it.

"You alright kid?" he asked, taking one of the Thin Mints and popping it into his mouth.

"Yeah, why?" I asked, not blinking at the screen.

"You're starin' at the TV and you've sat there and nearly ate a whole box of cookies."

I pulled my eyes away from the television to look over at him. He was sitting beside me with his feet propped up on the small coffee table in front of us. He took another cookie from the open box in my hand as he waited for my reply.

"Why do care if I'm staring at the TV? If I stare at you too long, you get mad at me, so this shouldn't bother you. And so what if I_ have_ nearly eaten an entire box of cookies? I paid for them, their mine. Besides, I have a sweet tooth."

"Don't blame eatin' a box of cookies on your tooth; it didn't make you do it," he said with a wink, going for another Thin Mint.

I snatched the box out of his grasp. "Sorry, but you can't make fun of me and then take my cookies; it doesn't work that way with me," I said. "And anyway, I'm fine, although I could ask what's wrong with you?"

He was wearing a white T-shirt and jogging pants. Although he couldn't really get sick, he certainly didn't look as well as usual.

"Don't feel good today," he said. "Now give me one of those."

"Here," I said, shoving the box into his hands.

"What's wrong?" he asked, toning down his voice so only I could hear him.

"Nothing."

"You're lyin'."

"So?"

"So tell me what's wrong."

I looked around; no one was paying any attention to us, they were all still watching the TV. "I don't want to talk about it in here."

He stood, took my hand and pulled me up. Together we walked from the den, out into the hallway and I then followed him all the way into the kitchen. I walked over to the island, lifted myself up and sat down onto it.

"What's wrong?" he asked again, crossing his impressive arms over his equally impressive chest, as he stood right in front of me.

I played with the hem of my hot and link pink striped skirt that I was wearing over my blue jeans and let out a sigh. "I'm worried about this place," I admitted.

He blinked at me. "Worried about what?"

"I don't know; that I'll lose it, that something's going to happen. I was fine; I was doing fine…but then Professor Xavier said something the other day about this being my home and I got scared."

"Why?" he asked, walking closer.

"I don't have a home. The last one I had, my daddy died and I ended up losing it. Everything since then has slipped away, it's a given, it's what always happens, every time. What if something happens here?"

"Nothing's gonna' happen here."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"Logan, it's not some joke or superstition; I'm being serious. If this school is my home, something might happen to it."

"I'm not gonna' let anything happen to you, you hear me?" he said, standing in front of me, placing a hand on either side of me and looked me right in the eye. "I'm not gonna' let you get hurt."

"You don't understand; this isn't about me, it's about the school. I think I should leave."

"You wanna' know what I think?"

"What?" I asked, staring him right back in the eye.

"I think you're scared, but not of something happening to the school. You're scared of settling down and gettin' attached to people."

"You're full of it, you know that?"

"Really? You're gonna' sit there and tell me that your mother screwed you over your whole life, you're scared to tell any of your family that you're a mutant and your daddy dyin' didn't affect you? That you're not constantly scared that everyone's gonna' leave you? You don't wanna' get close 'cause you're scared that you're gonna' get hurt, 'cause you always do."

"Well that's just super freakin' fantastic Logan, you have me all figured out, don't you?"

"I'm not done kid," he said, getting as close to me as he could. "When I look at you, I see me." I cocked an eyebrow at him. "You think I'm used to havin' a home, either? I practically lived in a truck for fifteen years of my life and when Chuck offered me a place here, I didn't wanna' take it 'cause I knew I'd lose it. You're scared and you're runnin' away, that's what I used to do and that's what you're doin' now. You leave and go back to Connecticut then guess what? You will be right; you will lose this place, it won't be your home."

"I am not scared and I am not running away," I yelled in protest.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

He shook his head. "I don't believe you."

"I don't care."

"I don't believe that either."

"Well as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if you believe anything that I say."

"You've been lookin' for a reason to leave this place since you got here. Whether you were meanin' to or not, and it's not what Chuck said that scared you, it's what you said that did."

"And what, exactly, did I said that scared me so terribly? It couldn't have been too important or I would remember it, wouldn't I?"

He moved his face in close, his nose nearly touching mine. I could feel his hot breath on my mouth, coming out at a furious pace. He kept his eyes locked with mine and when I moved my head to look away, he tilted it back up with his hand.

I looked at his face and saw a concentration that only a life like his could give him. He wasn't looking into my eyes, I could feel it, he was looking past them. He was inside of my head, he knew all of my thoughts and it didn't matter what I said to him, he had a smarter and truer retort. I _was_ scared to be close to people, he was right. I was terrified that he was standing right in front of me, looking right at me, and seeing everything that I had hidden from everyone else. He saw past all of my charades, excuses and distractions.

He saw inside of me demons that I had wanted to kill. I was full of demons and he had known that from the day we met. No one had ever managed to really see me, but that day in the garden, he had known everything about me. And yet, that was the one time when no one had actually _seen_ me, because of the fog.

I had barely known that man, but there he stood, right in front of me, seeing things through me that made me feel exposed and vulnerable. He made me terrified.

"The other night when you were in my room, you said that your mother hated you. You told me that, you said she hated you for bein' alive and your father dyin' instead of you. And you cried. You're scared 'cause you were comfortable with me and said something that you're afraid is gonna' make me think you're weak. You're scared because I know something about you now that you don't tell anyone. You don't wanna' take care of your mother, you do is so that you have an excuse to run away from other people. You're not runnin' now, 'cause I'm not lettin' you. You're stayin' here and nothing's gonna' happen 'cause you only lose your home when you want to, when you're getting too attached to people and you're scared they know you."

"If you know all of that, if you know that I run when people know me, then why didn't you just pretend you couldn't see me? Why couldn't you just let me go on believing that I was hiding everything perfectly well, instead of proving to me that everyone can obviously see all of my problems?"

"'Cause everyone can't see 'em, I can," he said, still staring me in the eye. "Can you handle that?"

"Are you going to hurt me?"

He shook his head slowly, never losing eye contact. "No darlin', I'm not gonna' hurt you, I promise."

"Then yeah, I can handle it."

"You gotta' promise me something too, though."

The air felt thick with emotion and it strangled me. I couldn't breathe and my heart felt as though it had stopped.

"What?"

"You don't leave when summer gets here."

"I can't promise you that."

"Your mother chooses to screw up her life, by goin' back to her, all you're gonna' do is let her screw up yours up, too."

"That's my decision to make, though, and no matter what happens, what she does to herself or me, she's my _mother_, and I _love_ her."

"Even if she doesn't love you?"

I took in a sharp, shallow breath and looked away. I nodded my head. "Yeah, even if she doesn't love me."

"Then promise me that when you're with me, you'll be honest. You cut the crap. No games, no excuses, no hidin' behind anything, all right? If I'm bein' a jackass and you think so, then I want you to tell me. You be honest with me and I promise I won't ever use what you tell me to hurt you. Alright?"

I looked back to him and I knew there was no way that he was lying. He was showing me that he meant it by being completely open with me. If you asked me to explain it, I couldn't, but there was just something about him that felt honest. I could see it in his eyes. There was nothing being said, it was just silence, but I could hear him and I knew he meant it; he wouldn't use what I said to hurt me. I had waited so long to hear something tell me that and truly mean it.

"Okay. I promise that I'll try to be honest with you, I'll do the best I can."

He nodded his head. "Good," he said standing up straight, moving his face back away from mine. "That's all I want."

My breath staggered back into my chest with its even pace slowly, as I watched him leave the room. There was something about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but the more I thought of what had happened between us, I felt okay with it. I was okay with him knowing me, though I didn't know why.

That night, I lost a little more of my heart to him.

* * *

The next morning I woke up with a headache, a congested nose and a sore throat. I lay in bed, whining to myself and wondering where I may have caught a cold, until it struck me. I knew just where I caught it.

I got out of bed, stormed directly across the hall, and knocked on Logan's door. He opened it and I didn't wait for him to say anything. As soon as I saw him, I started.

"Look, I don't know what sort of seedy, dive bars you go to, but I really don't appreciate you standing in front of me, breathing your germs on me, until I catch whatever it is that you have."

"What are you talkin' about?" he asked, looking genuinely confused.

"You made me sick!"

"That's funny, he makes me sick, too," Scott said with a laugh, walking behind me down the hall. Logan responded with a low growl.

"I'm being serious. I have some sort of cold or virus and you've been the only person close enough to me to give me anything," I said.

"And what were the two of you doing so close that he gave you a cold?" Scott asked, pausing and turning around at the end of the hall.

"We were knockin' boots in the back of my car." I rolled my eyes. "You got a problem with me havin' a conversation with the kid without you jumpin' in on it?" he asked, a growl biting at the surface.

"I wasn't jumping in, I was being curious," Uncle Scott lied defensively.

"Curious my a-"

I held up a hand. "I'm still a girl you know? I'm not sure where I was when people decided that it was okay to swear in front of woman, but I would appreciate it if you didn't, okay?"

"Yeah," Logan agreed reluctantly.

He shot a look at Scott down the hall. "All right, I'm going," he said, turning back around and continuing down the hall.

"So, you're sick. How do you know it's my fault?"

"You were feeling well yesterday and you looked pretty rough, too-"

"Thanks," he said sarcastically."

"You wanted me to be honest with you." He smiled. "Anyway, I think you picked up some germ in a bar somewhere and instead of it dying in your body, since you technically aren't allowed to get sick, you gave it to me."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?"

I pouted my lips slightly. "I want you to make me feel better."

"How?"

"I don't know, if I knew I would do it myself." I sighed. "I'm going to see Jean and see if she can give me any drugs to knock me out until I'm over this. I just wanted to tell you that this is all your fault."

He laughed. "All right."

"I'll see you down at breakfast," I said, starting down the hall.

"If you're not too out of it to come."

"Hey, at least I won't care though, will I? After I get some medicine, I'll hopefully come eat, try to find some ice cream, then pile up in bed for the rest of the day and watch TV."

"All right, sounds good to me." I was nearly at the end of the hall when I heard him call me, "Delia-"

I stopped and turned around. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"That you're sick."

I smiled at him. "Thank you."

"See you in a little while."

I raised my hand and gave him a small wave as I walked backwards down the hall. "Bye."

"Bye darlin'."

* * *

I went down to the infirmary and it was empty. The lights were on, but no one was in there. I decided that Jean had probably just gone to breakfast and I could see her once we had both finished eating. I turned to leave and saw a row of three hospital beds lined up, against the wall. I knew it was irrational, but hospital beds creeped me out. They always reminded me of when my daddy was in the hospital.

I took a shaking breath and walked over to the one closest to me. I ran my hand over the side of the railing and felt an overwhelming amount of emotion run through me. I remembered the days I had spent watching my father, holding my hand to his chest and feeling his chest rise and fall with the help of a breathing machine. It was the only thing that moved as he lay still in his comatose state. I would lay in bed with him and press my ear to his heart so that I could hear its beat. Mother told me that people like them had hearts that sang, but only they could hear it. I would listen for hours, trying to hear the music that she said she heard while listening to his heart, but I never could.

I felt left out and alone and scared wondering if they had more secrets that they kept from me aside from what they heard when they were together. Over time, I found out that they did and that only made me feel ever more left out, alone and scared. When my father died, he wasn't the only one; mother did too. She left me that day in the hospital and I never saw _her _again. I had spent so much of my life busy worrying about not being alone, but what I never had time to really stop and realize, was that I already _was_ alone.

"Hey, Scott said you were sick."

I turned and saw Jean. I gave her the best smile I could manage.

"Yeah."

"Come into my office and tell me what's wrong," she joked, sitting on a chair in front of one of the examining tables. I let out a sigh, walked over to where she was and sat down on the table. "So what's going on?"

"I woke up this morning with a headache and a stuffy nose. My throat's also killing me."

"Do you have a fever?"

I felt my forehead with the back of my hand. "I don't think so, but my hand could be cold."

"All right, I'll check it in a little bit. Any dizziness or vomiting?"

"None so far."

"When did you start noticing you were sick?"

"This morning when I woke up," I said. "I think I caught it from Logan."

She looked up at me from where she was writing on her clipboard. "Really?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"No…not that way. We were talking last night and we were pretty close-"

"How close?" I put my hand up in front of my face to indicate where his had been. "And why was he that close?"

I let out a sigh and shook my head. "We were _talking_."

She smiled at me. "I'm sure you were."

"Don't even do that to me. You can read my mind; I give you permission. We did _not_ do anything other than talk." And make life-changing promises. She quirked her eyebrow at me again. "Yes, I think he's hot and wouldn't mind grabbing him and making out with him for a while every now and then. However, aside from the fact that I look like a sixteen year old, dress like a seven year old and act like I'm forty, Logan still thinks _you're_ hot."

"You look your age and there's nothing wrong with how you dress or act," she said, looking back down at her clipboard. "Besides, I've been in Logan's head a few times and he notices you more than you think. I hate to admit jealousy and would appreciate you not telling Scott that I am, but he finds you more attractive than he ever did me."

I looked at her skeptically. "I don't believe you."

She shrugged. "You don't have to. But like I said; I've been in his head a few times."

"Hm," I said. "So he's really attracted to me?"

She looked up at me and smiled. "Did you really not know?"

"My offer still stands from earlier; feel free to read my mind."

She contemplated the idea for a while before I saw her close her eyes and focus on me. I tried to relax and after a few minutes, her face went back and she opened her eyes to look at me. "Oh honey, you really had no idea, did you?"

"No, I don't know when people think I'm attractive or when they're flirting with me. I'm terrible at that sort of thing."

"Well, all I can say is that whatever this is; you didn't catch it from him. His body won't allow germs or viruses to live inside of him long enough for him to pass it on to someone else. And even if they did, you couldn't have caught something from him last night and gotten sick this morning. Colds and viruses need time to grow and spread in your body before you actually feel the symptoms and start getting sick," she said as she stood, went to her desk and found her thermometer. She came back and held it up. "Open your mouth and keep it under your tongue."

"So, he weally thinks I'm howt?" I asked again once the thermometer was in my mouth.

She laughed and set it. "Yes, now no more talking."


	6. Breathe Me

Disclaimer: I sadly do _not_ own the rights to Marvel, or Fox, or even the Pink song that has the same title as my story. It just so happens that I've ripped them all off. But I'm poor, so what are you going to do about it?... I _so_ need a job. Please enjoy.

* * *

Breathing is an awfully curious thing. We rarely notice we're doing it and yet it's so important to us. Our very life depends on it. I will be the first to admit that I myself will be the first to admit that I myself take it for granted much more than I should. However, as I lay in bed later that day, unable to breathe through my nose even with the humidifier that Uncle Scott had brought up for me, I vowed that once I got over my cold, I would never take it for grated ever again.

There was a knock on my door and I called out for whomever it was to come in. The door creaked open.

"Is the patient well enough for a visitor?" I heard Logan's voice ask through the creak in the door.

I laughed. "Yeah, I've been given full clearance from the doctor. Come on in."

He pushed his way into the room and held up a pint of ice cream. "I brought medicine," he said with a smile.

"Oh, you lovely, lovely man you. Where did you find that? I've searched all over the school looking for some."

He walked over to my bed and handed me the pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream and a spoon. "Yeah, they have these odd things called stores where you actually buy stuff like that now," he teased. He pulled the chair away from my desk and placed it beside my bed before sitting down. He then propped his feet up onto my bed beside mine. "What'd Red say was wrong with you, aside from the obvious?"

"Oh, you're too funny," I said dryly, pulling the lid from the carton and taking a bite. "She said I have a cold and that I'll be better in a few days."

"What _is_ that?" he asked, jabbing a pointed finger in the direction of the machine blowing out steam in the floor at the end of my bed.

"It's a humidifier."

"What's it do?"

"It puts moister into the air so it makes it easier to breathe."

"Does it work?"

"Not real well I'm afraid, no."

"You need to go to the spa room."

"I beg your pardon?" I asked through a mouthful of ice cream.

"The spa room in the gym. When you turn the hot tub on it fills the room up with steam. It'd be like sittin' inside one of those things," he explained, pointing to the humidifier again. I looked at him quizzically. "You knew we had a hot tub, right?"

"I didn't know we had a gym," I joked. "No, I'm just confused by why you know so much about the spa room. You don't seem like the kind of guy who would use anything with the word 'spa' in it."

"My bones start hurtin' every once in a while and I go sit in the hot tub until they work themselves out."

"That sounds pretty good to me," I said, tossing him the remote control. Nothing was on that I cared to watch anyway, so I might as well have let him get comfortable and have control of it. "I'll have to go down and try to figure it out later."

"I can show you," he said, turning the channel to some John Wayne movie. "I'm still not feelin' too good today and was gonna' go down there later tonight."

I looked over at him and raised my eyebrow. "If this is some lame attempt to get me into a bathing suit of some kind, I'll have to know that that is _not_ going to happen. Aside from the fact that I didn't bring one, I just want to stay in my pajamas and breath."

He laughed. "It's alright, you don't need a bathin' suit; I don't wear one," he said, looking over and winking at me.

"I do hope you're not serious."

"Hey, I stay on my side, you stay on yours, no peakin' and we'll be all right."

"You are so disgusting." I laughed.

"Come on kid, there's nothing wrong with it."

I shook my head. "I think I'll just go on my own and figure it out."

"All right, fine, obviously you're so attracted to me you're too afraid to be in the same room as me while I've got my clothes off."

"Are you completely serious? Would you listen to yourself? You are so incredibly conceited," I said, laughing at him.

"You agreed you weren't gonna' lie anymore, so you can't say that's not true. It's fine, a lot of women are attracted to me, I'm used to it by now, but you're gonna' have to learn how to control yourself around me sooner or later."

"Oh my word," I said, laughing as I shook my head. "I apologize, you're right. There's just something about you that's so…humble, and it drives me wild. Actually, I'm not only completely attracted to you, but I think I'm in love with you as well."

"Sorry darlin', I can't help it. Women just fall for me."

I let out a sigh. "Thanks for the laugh, but on a more serious note, Jean said that it's not your fault that I'm sick. I didn't want to tell you, I thought I might be able to milk the guilty thing for a while, but she said I had to tell you."

He reached over and took the pint of ice cream from my hands. "Well, if it's not my fault, then you don't get any medicine," he said and took a bite of it.

"That's not very nice. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, all that should matter is that I'm sick and you love me and you want to make me feel better." He took another bite and then handed it back to me. "Thank you."

We sat and watched the movie, whatever it was, for nearly half an hour as we passed the ice cream back and forth until it was gone.

"I can't breathe," I whined, sliding down into my bed as John Wayne shot three different men.

"Get up, then."

"I don't want to get up."

He turned off the TV and stood up. "You can't breathe, we're doin' something about it."

He helped me to stand as I followed him as we left my room. It was nearly one o'clock in the afternoon and the halls were empty. I padded behind him in my pajamas and house shoes slowly as he walked to the gym.

On our way there, we passed by several classes in progress and as I looked at a few of the students, I wondered how they did it. How could they, kids, teenagers, be so brave as to be honest about who they were? I knew that not all of the students were runaways and that some had families that didn't know that they were mutants, but I couldn't imagine being so brave and bold as the ones that had told their families. They had to have known their family's stance on the matter, as it's a very personal topic that I believe on which everyone has strong opinions. I didn't believe that I could ever do it and that thought made me feel guilty. It reminded me of the first conversation I had had with Logan on the subject. He said that he wouldn't change because it's him. In a way, I agreed, but then I completely disagreed. Strange how that some times happens, isn't it? It was part of me, but it didn't define me. I could hide it and no one would know. Those who chose not to hide it; they earned my utmost respect.

Those born brave were the ones who could not hide who they were. The ones with more physical differences. The ones that were born not only genetically different, but born so that you could tell. Little babies born blue, or with scales, or a tail. Although Rogue looked normal, she couldn't touch and that was something she couldn't hide.

Now, it's not that I don't have respect and admiration for those of us who don't have a choice in whether everyone knows what they are; I do completely. But just knowing that there's a prospect of losing everything you have and love and choosing to give it all up because you feel so strongly about being who you really are, that makes me proud and guilty all at the same time. They were still in high school and had more courage than I probably ever would. It goes to prove that age really _is_ nothing but a number.

When we arrived at the gym, I realized that Logan was completely serious about not wearing anything in the hot tub.

"So, how do you wanna' do this? You wanna' go in and keep your eyes closed while I'm changin' or what?" he asked with a smirk. The jerk was actually smirking. He thought this was funny.

I rolled my eyes at him. "To save your modesty, I'll just wait out here until you're done and everything's…covered and even you can yell at me and call me in."

"All right," he said, continuing to smirk at me as he entered the double doors marked 'Spa'. I myself smiled a little at the sight of big, burly Wolverine going into a spa and let out a small laugh.

I waited outside the doors for about five minutes. After wondering what in the world was taking so long and debating whether I should go ahead and go in, I decided against it. Surely, he hadn't forgotten about me. I paced around outside, attempted to do the few simple ballet moves that mother had taught me when I was much younger. After a few tries, I managed to get myself up on my toes, but then quickly lose my balance as soon as Logan called for me to come in.

I opened the door and a roll of steam hit me in my face. After it cleared and I adjusted to the room, I saw Logan sitting in the hot tub, his arms stretched out on the sides and his eyes closed. I looked over at the padded bench that lined the right wall. It was about three feet wide and I saw that Logan had made me a small, makeshift bed on it. Complete with a towel stretched out over the seat and a rolled up one at the top for a pillow. I walked over to it, kicked off my house shoes underneath the bench and lay down on it. After a few moments, I realized that my breath was much better.

"Thank you," I said.

"For what?"

"Making me try this, it really helps."

"Don't worry about it. Just as long as it keeps you from whining." He laughed. I loved his laugh. It was deep and rough and sounded as if he had gargled with lava. In short; it was beautiful.

Logan was a real man's man. I had heard people say that there were certain guys that men wanted to be and women wanted to be with. I thought it was all just a stupid saying, until I met him. Then I realized that they had meant it about Logan. Although by that time I had understood that what Uncle Scott had told me about Logan was true, it didn't really bother me. So what if he was a crude, egotistical, sarcastic jerk? He had a charm about him that seemed to make it not matter. He wasn't mean, as a matter of a face, he had been quite nice to me. There was a certain connection between the two of us that I didn't fully understand. There was just something about him that made me feel comfortable and at ease with him, no matter the situation. I wasn't sure if anyone else ever felt that way around him, but that's how I felt.

"Would you rather; lose your sense of taste or smell?" I asked, closing my eyes and relaxing in the warm room.

He made a sound that it had taken me time to realize meant that he was thinking inside of being annoyed. "Smell, I guess."

"Really?"

"Yeah. What about you?"

"Taste. I love food, sweets are great, but there's just something about scents that make things come alive, you know? It's tied to memory, relaxation, emotion; I would be really upset if I lost my sense of smell."

"Hm, good point."

I peaked open an eye and looked over at him. He was sunk down into the water up to his chest and was combing back his hair with a wet hand. "Does that mean you change your mind?" I asked, closing my eyes once again.

"Yeah, I guess so."

We back to silence after that, him trying to work the pain of his joints and me falling in and out of a sleep as I continued to be able to breathe with the help of the steam. I don't know how long we were in there, maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes, whatever it was, I was in one of my more awake periods when Uncle Scott came in.

"Logan, have you seen Delia?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Last time I opened my eyes."

"What?"

I laughed. "I'm over here," I called from the bench.

"What are you doing in here?"

"Breathing."

"Is Logan…naked?" he asked.

"Yep," Logan answered, a smirk in his voice.

"This is completely inappropriate," he protested.

"We're all naked under our clothes," I said.

Logan chuckled. "Some more than others, kid."

"The two of you are far too comfortable with each other for my _own_ comfort," Scott said and I could tell he was shaking his head. "Delia, I need to speak to you for a minute, can we step out into the gym and then you can come back in here and…breathe, or whatever when we're done?"

I took in a deep breath. "All right, that's fine." I stood and followed him as he led me from the room back out into the gym. After being in the other room for so long, it seemed cold to me and chill bumps rose on my arms. I folded them across my chest, trying to keep them warm. "So what did you need to talk to me about?"

"First of all, I want you to tell me what's going on in there," he said, pointing behind him to the doors from which we had just come.

"You saw what was going on."

"Did I?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing underneath his glasses.

"Do you remember when we had the discussion where you gave me permission to be around him?"

"Yeah, around him while he's _clothed_. I didn't think I had to be _that_ specific."

"Look, the humidifier you brought up wasn't working so he suggested I try this. It's helping."

"That part I get, what I don't understand is how it helps you for him to be nude?"

I let out a small laugh. "It has nothing to do with it. He said his bones were hurting so he came to sit in the hot tub. That's all."

"I still don't like it."

"You don't like _him_."

"That's true."

"All right, what was it that you wanted?"

"Oh, Xavier said that he needed to see you in his office. He said that he has some information on what you asked him about a few days ago."

My eyes lit up. "Thank you," I said, rushing back into the spa room for my house shoes. "Sorry Logan, I've got to go, I'll see you later!"

"What's the hurry?" he asked, watching me as I slipped on my shoes.

"The Professor wants to talk to me; it's about my daddy's family. Are you going to be at lunch in a little while?"

"Yeah," he said, looking slightly confused.

"Okay, I'll talk to you and tell you about it then. Bye!" I said, rushing back through the door, joining Scott out in the gym once more. He walked me to the Professor's office and I followed in nervous anticipation.

Had he found them? Where were they from? What were they like? Would I like them if I met them? Would they like _me_? What if they were all gone, what if I had allowed myself to be seen as vulnerable to Professor Xavier for no reason at all? Every thought seemed to be bigger than the last, growing with excitement, nervousness and trepidation. I had no idea what he had to tell me and yet my mind was already creating images of me visiting their graves. I wasn't sure why, but I was stuck on the idea that they were dead and I was preparing myself for him to confirm it.

"Are you okay?" Uncle Scott asked me as we stopped outside of the Professor's office door.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Do you want me to go in with you?"

Did he know what we were going to talk about, or was he just concerned for me, I wondered.

I shook my head and smiled at him. "No, I'll be fine. But thank you."

"Okay, go and talk with the Great and Powerful Oz, then," he joked.

I laughed. "Alright. I'll see you at lunch when I'm done," I told him, turning towards the door as he began to walk away.

"Hey Delia?" he called.

I turned back to look at him down the hall. "Yeah?"

"I don't know if I told you, but I'm glad you came to stay here."

There was something painfully honest about how he had spoken. What he said wasn't that big or fantastic, I knew he was glad that I had come there, even if he hadn't told me. But it wasn't the words, it was how he said them. It reminded me of how my father would sound when he came in from a match late at night. He would come into my bedroom to wake me so that he could tell me that he loved me and it felt as if he were hiding something deeper under his words. I never knew what he was hiding, but I felt that Scott was burying the same message under his statement.

I nodded my head and tried to fill my own voice with meaning and secrecy, but I didn't know how. "I am too." Okay, so big setup for something simple, but when you go day to day worrying about if you'll lose the place you live in, you feel grateful when you can stop worrying.

He looked as though he wanted to say more, but didn't know how, and so he didn't. He just nodded his head and then turned back down the hall to go back to classes.

I took in a deep breath and then let it out before knocking on the door in front of me. The Professor called me in and I entered his office, my nerves on edge. He told me to take a seat and I did. The man must have thought I was crazy, it was my second visit to his office in a week, both of which times I wore pajamas.

"How are you feeling? Jean mentioned that you were sick."

"Yeah, it's just a cold, I'm doing pretty well," I answered politely.

"Good," he said with a smile. "As I'm sure you know, that is not why I asked you in here. I have found the information you were wanting regarding your father's family."

I swallowed loudly in a nervous attempt to calm myself. "What did you find out?"

"Your grandparents, Joseph and Eliza are…" he paused, looking through a small notebook on his desk. It was probably only three seconds, but it felt like three hours. I did all I could to stop myself from reaching across his desk, shaking him and saying 'What? They're what?' "Living in Brooklyn."

My heart seemed to have stopped. "They're alive?"

"Yes, and well, or so they said." He smiled.

"You spoke to them?"

"Yes, I spoke to them on the phone just a few moments ago."

"Did you tell them why you were calling?"

"Yes."

"What did they say?"

"They said that they would like to meet you." My mind began racing twice as fast as it had been, running on nerves. They wanted to meet me; they actually cared to get to know me. I had a family. "Delia, it is not my position to tell you what to do, but I'm not entirely convinced that this is as easy as it sounds."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that there was a reason for why your father and his family never spoke to one another. Perhaps it would be best if you didn't meet them."

"Sir, I have to, I have to at least meet them. If I can see why my father left, then I will, too. If it doesn't work out then I'm back to being where I was. But I have to try."

"Very well then," he said with another sigh. "I have their information here that you may have. When I spoke to them, they invited you to come to their house a week from this Sunday, if you decide to go." He took the piece of paper from the notebook he had been looking at and handed it to me. "I suggest taking Scott or Logan along with you, just in case."

I looked at the piece of paper he had given to me and held it carefully. His neat handwriting had written out their name and address along with their phone number and date they had asked me to come to their house. The sight of it made my heart rate speed up. Suddenly it was all too real and overwhelming for me. I had to leave. I needed to think and figure it all out in my head.

"Thank you," I said, finding that I couldn't really move. I needed to say more to him. 'Thank you' wasn't enough, but what was I supposed to say? No one ever teaches you the proper way to thank someone for finding your lost relatives. He must have understood my dilemma because he smiled at me kindly and told me that I was welcome and I could go to lunch.

I left his office and felt the need to talk to Scott and explain the situation to him. I didn't want to hurt him and I was afraid that there was a huge possibility that I might. So I pulled him aside, explained it to him, and told him that I wasn't ungrateful for what he had done for me, but that I needed to know them. He smiled and said that he understood. I'm not sure if he did, but he gave me a hug and a kiss and told me that he was happy for me.

That was _before_ lunch. _After_ lunch, I grabbed Logan and told him the same thing before roping him into going with me. Well…I didn't do _too_ much roping; he wasn't going to let me go to Brooklyn by myself. Then came the hard part; telling Scott that Logan and I were going to be staying over night in another town together. I wasn't so sure how he would take that, so I waited until later that night, after dinner when he was sitting in the den by himself reading the newspaper. I went and sat down beside him, wondering about the most delicate way that I could break it to him. Make it seem like his idea, I thought, perhaps then he won't be so uptight about it.

"What are you reading?" I asked, sitting on my knees, facing towards him.

He peered at me from over the newspaper. "I'm reading about the conference they had in D.C. last week."

"Oh…what about?"

"Mutants."

"Oh."

"You sound disappointed," he said with a small laugh.

"Well it's just that whenever they have one of those, they're always bashing us. It's like if you give two guys a gun, it's not the gun in their hands that makes them dangerous, it's the person who decides what they're going to do with it. Just because we're mutants and have powers doesn't always mean that we're dangerous, it's how we decide to use them that does. It's not fait that we should all be stereotyped for how we were born."

He smiled at me. "That was quite profound Delia, I'm proud of you."

"Thanks," I said, happy that I had started the conversation off well by getting on his good side straight away. "Oh, the Professor thinks that I should have someone go with me next week when I go to Brooklyn."

"And you wanted me to go with you?"

"Well, yeah, but I want to stay the night there and come home the next day. The problem with that is it's on a Sunday and since you have to teach on Monday, you won't have time to get back for classes that next day."

"So what did you have in mind, because I agree with Xavier; I don't think you should go by yourself."

"Well, I was thinking that perhaps Logan could take me since he doesn't work," I said, a sheepish tone in my voice.

"Hm," he said, looking at his newspaper. "That's funny."

"What is?"

"It doesn't say anything in here about Hell freezing over."

I laughed. "Come on Uncle Scott, it's one night. Nothing will happen, I promise."

He folded his newspaper and sat it on the arm of the couch. "You can't promise me that. This is Logan we're talking about."

"Who has been nothing but nice to me ever since we met."

"You've never been alone with him like that before."

"Valentine's Day," I reminded him.

"I still don't like the idea."

"Do you have a better one?"

"Yeah; call and reschedule to another day when I can go with you."

"I can't. _This_ makes sense. Unless you guys are called on a mission, then he doesn't have to be back by a certain time. You can talk to him and…threaten him with his life if you want. I'll give Jean permission to read my mind as soon as I get back to make sure that nothing happened."

He stared at me as he thought. "I don't know."

"What exactly are you afraid might happen while we're gone that hasn't already happened while we've been here?"

"Logan made a pass at my wife the moment I wasn't there and he had her alone. Now I've gotten over that and I can work and fight with him when I have to, but by no means have I forgotten it. If he would try that with someone who was married, I don't know what he'll try with you."

"What do you mean Logan made a pass at Jean?"

"Right before Jean went missing, the jet went down in some woods just outside of the school. I wasn't there so I don't know exactly what happened, but Logan told me that… Look, it doesn't matter what he did with Jean, you're twenty-five, this is your decision, not mine." He picked up his newspaper and opened it once again.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before?" I asked, feeling confused.

He put down the newspaper and let out a sigh. He looked at me and I realized just how much I hated those glasses. It wasn't fair that I didn't get to look in his eyes when he talked. I had only one memory of actually seeing him without his glasses. I was four, he was fourteen and it was before his powers got out of control. Mother had gone away on 'vacation' for the week, he had come to Connecticut for a few days and daddy had taken us out to eat for the day. He talked about the school and I remember not quite understanding what it meant to him. I made him have our photos taken together in one of those photo booths, both of us smiling and showing off our dimples. He kept them; he still has them in his room. A year later, his powers were so bad that he had to start wearing his glasses. I missed being able to look into his eyes.

"Because once I realized that the two of you were going to be friends, I decided to let you make up your own mind about him. You're a grown woman, Delia. You've made harder decisions than who to be friends with and I didn't want to hurt what the two of you have. I know we've not always been close but you seem to be happy here and with him. I'm glad, I wish you would've picked someone else, but otherwise, I'm happy for you." I laughed. "If you really want him to take you, then okay. I want to have a long talk with him first, but I trust you."

"Thank you Uncle Scott."

"You're welcome. Come here," he said, pulling me to him and hugging me. "I love you sweetheart."

"I love you, too."

"Everything's going to get better, just wait and see."


	7. Dawn's Early Light

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Marvel, Fox or even the title of this story. But I did just find out that I will be getting a laptop for my eighteenth birthday, so I'll get to upload as many of my stories onto it as I want without bogging my family's computer down. Yay me!

Sidenote:To Narnian Sprite or all who were wondering, I update fast because I write out the whole story in a notebook long hand, whichtakes about a month or a little more,and then once I'm done, I type it up onto the computer. It usually takes me acouple hours to write out a chapter and this past weekend my nephew's been gone and so I've had a lot of sad, but free, time on my hands. Anyway, I hope ya'll enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

"How'd Scooter take the news?" Logan asked once he let me into his room. It was a little past ten that night and I had decided to stop by and talk to him before going to bed.

"Not too bad, I don't think he'll kill you just yet."

He let out a chuckle. "Well, I guess I can sleep better knowin' that then, can't I?" he said sarcastically.

"That's what I'm here for; to put your mind at ease." I laughed, sitting down in his armchair.

What Scott had told me about him and Jean resurfaced to the forefront of my mind as I sat there watching him change his shirt for bed. I wondered what had gone on between them.

Should I ask?

Was it really any of my business?

If I knew the whole story, would it change how I felt about him?

I decided that the answer to them all was 'no'. Scott had said that he had forgiven him and since neither of them had brought it up before then, I thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, or so to speak anyway.

I twisted a piece of my hair around my finger as I thought.

"You all right?"

I turned my eyes to him from where I had been mindlessly staring at his closet doors. "Huh?" I asked dumbly.

He laughed. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yeah, I was just thinking."

"About what?"

I untwisted the hair from my finger and ran my hand back through it all, combing it away from my face. "Next Sunday, I'm nervous," I lied…sort of. Although I had been thinking about what Scott had said, I _was _nervous about the next Sunday so I wasn't _really_ lying…right?

"Why?" he asked, sitting down on his bed, facing me.

"Why? Did you just ask me _why_? Because it's one of the most awkward situations that anyone can go through. These people are my family and yet perfect strangers. I have to go into their house and be nice. I'm not good with people, what if I piss them off straight away or something?"

"So what if you do?"

"Why am I even talking to you about this? You don't give a care if you piss people off, you do it for fun, you enjoy it."

"Yeah, so?" he asked, looking for the point in what I had just said.

I rolled my eyes. "So I'm not like you, I need people to like me."

"Why?"

"I don't know," I said with a whine in my voice. I hated being sick: it made me whiney. "I was all excited and hyped up about meeting them until the Professor actually told me I was going to, now every time I think about it, I get sick."

"No, that's just your cold," he joked. I smiled despite myself. "You'll be alright kid, don't worry about it."

I let out a sigh. "I hope so," I said feeling my forehead with the back of my hand. "Will you check to see if I have a fever? I think my hand's warm."

He reached over and felt my forehead with his hand. "It feels alright to me."

"No, your hand feels hot too. Kiss me and see."

"Excuse me?" he said, removing his hand.

I laughed. "No, that's not how I meant it. Kiss my forehead; they say that's the best way to check."

He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Who's _they_?"

"Professionals. I don't know; they're just they."

He stood, came right in front of me and then bent down and kissed my forehead. "Yeah, you're a little hot."

"Why Logan, I had no idea you felt that way. You're not too bad yourself," I said, unable to resist, then threw back my head and laughed.

"You've got problems, kid," he said, sitting back down on his bed.

My laughing slowly stopped and I turned more serious. "Logan…do you remember if you had a family?"

He was quiet as he just nodded his head, feeling as if he were looking for words to say. "Yeah, I did."

"Do you remember them?"

"Some times."

"What were they like?"

He ran his hand back through his hair and let out a sigh. "I don't know."

"Were you married?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

He set his jaw as he paused for a moment. "Guy named Barnes killed her…and our baby."

It was strange for me to see Logan showing that kind of emotion and to hear him talk about his family. "A girl or a boy?"

"I don't know; it weren't born yet."

"I bet you would have been a good father…a husband." He looked at me with doubtful eyes. "I mean it, Logan. You're a good guy; I bet she really loved you."

"Yeah, well, I don't know."

"Well I do. You're not half as bad as you think you are, you know? Because despite your some times sarcastic attitude and quick temper, you're actually quite nice. To me at least."

"Yeah, tell that to Summers."

I smiled at him. "He already knows, he just doesn't like to admit it."

He raised his brow at me. "Among other things."

I laughed. "What did your wife look like?" I asked.

He let out a sigh. "Uh…black hair, brown eyes, sort of tall. I don't know."

"Was she pretty?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, nodding his head as he ruffled the back of his hair with his hand. "You kind'a remind me of her some times."

I paused. "Is that a good thing?"

He nodded. "Yeah darlin', I think it is," he said, looking at me. "I like it anyway."

"Good, I'm glad then."

Logan and I had quickly become unexpected confidants in one another. I had always had a terrible time talking about myself; I didn't ever want anyone to know any of my problems. But when I was with him, I didn't feel like I had to worry. I didn't think he would judge me over what I thought of felt. I think he felt the same way, which was why he was telling me what he remembered of his wife. That was personal, that was his to own, as were my secrets that I had told him about my mother, and yet he had chosen to share them with me.

The feeling I had when I was around him made me feel connected. We were two different people in nearly every way possible, and yet we found ourselves confiding things in one another that we otherwise would have kept hidden. The whole idea made me feel vulnerable. And yet, the very same idea made me feel safe. There had never been anyone like him in my life and I was thankful that he was there.

"So Logan, would you rather sleep with Scott once or never sleep with women ever again?" I asked, trying to lighten up the conversation.

"Get out of my room."

"Excuse me?" I asked with a laugh, confused by his sudden hostility.

"Get out of my room kid, now!" he demanded, pointing to the door.

"Why?"

"'Cause I'm not playin' that game with you anymore. Not after that question."

"Oh, it's a game Logan, it's meant to be fun. You should lighten up a little bit." He growled low in his chest, causing me to smile. We were both quiet for a few minutes before I became curious. "I'm curious," I said, breaking the silence. "Does telling me to leave and growling at me mean that you would rather sleep with Uncle Scott once than to never sleep with women again?"

"No, it doesn't."

"All right, that's all I wanted to know," I said with a smile.

After that, we settled back into another long silence. I curled up in his chair and closed my eyes as we both sat quietly for a while. I sat there for probably five or ten minutes before I heard him calling me.

"Hey darlin', you wanna' go to bed?"

I opened my eyes and sighed. "Yeah, I guess I better," I said standing and walking over to him. "Goodnight Logan."

I bent down to kiss his cheek, but as I did so, he moved his head and my lips met at the corner of his mouth. I froze, not sure of what to do. Logan placed his hand on my cheek and guided my mouth over to his. I decided to let him take control and do what felt natural. After a moment, his kissing became more insistent and I felt his other hand at the small of my back, pulling me closer to him and down onto the bed. He tangled his fingers in my hair and tilted my head back. I felt him bite down hard on my lip and a salty taste trickled into my mouth. I pulled back and felt my lip. When I looked at my fingers, I saw blood. Logan moved his mouth to my neck and worked his way up to my ear.

"Are you alright, Jean?" he asked.

My eyes flew open and I sat up straight in bed. I looked around my room in sheer confusion. Logan must have carried me in there after I fell asleep in the chair in his room, but I didn't remember falling asleep. And my dream seemed so real that I had to check my lip to make sure that it wasn't really bleeding. It wasn't.

The sun was barely rising and the sounds in the halls were mute as everyone slept in their rooms. I reminded myself to never eat anything before bed, as it can lead to weird dreams and cause you to wake up when you would like to sleep an extra, say, oh…two, maybe three hours? I was wide-awake, my mind racing from the after effects of my dream, so I got up. I felt much better that day than I had when I had woke up the morning before. I could breathe through my nose some and was grateful that my aunt was a doctor.

I stood by my bed for a moment, surveying it in the early morning light. What to do to pass the time until breakfast, I wondered. I kept looking until I spotted my sketchpad sitting out on my desk from where it had been for nearly a week, as I seemed to have been either too forgetful or lazy to put it away. I went to it and picked it up along with one of the pencils and a flat, angled eraser. Quietly I snuck across the hall into Logan's room, praying he wouldn't wake for a couple of more hours at least.

I sat down in the same armchair that I had fallen asleep in and just stared at the sleeping man in front of me. What had the dream meant, I wondered thoughtfully.

Was I jealous of Jean?

Had he bitten me in the dream as a sign that meant he was going to hurt me?

Is cheese really a good bedtime snack?

I thought and thought and the only thing I could think of to make sense was that perhaps since Jean had told me that he thought I was attractive and Uncle Scott had told me somewhat of his situation with Jean, my mind was just playing out the events of the day in my head. Perhaps, I thought, but the dream still felt too real for me to just give up the thought of it to a rational idea such as that.

I looked at the man sleeping in front of me and began to draw him. I noticed that he barely moved as he slept, which I was grateful for as I could sketch him without moving around the room. He lay with one of his arms tucked under his pillow and the other one beside it. His covers were wrapped around his waist loosely, showing off his bare back and arms, allowing me a nice view of him.

He was beautiful, sexy and the perfect person to draw. His body seemed to shade itself for me as I filled in the lines of his face. Everything about him seemed to translate onto the paper so easily that by the time he began to stir and I was finishing the shading of his blankets, I was surprised to see that it was a little after eight o'clock.

He opened his eyes and looked at me sleepily. "Hey," he mumbled.

"Hey," I said, smiling at him.

"I thought I got rid of you last night?"

I let out a sigh. "You did, but I had a…sort of weird dream and when I woke up, I couldn't go back to sleep. Is it okay that I'm in here?"

He made a muffled laughing sound into his pillow. "Never had a problem with women in my room before, not gonna' start now, kid," he said, rolling over onto his back. "You should've woke me up or something, I would've let you lay down with me."

"It's alright, I decided to draw instead."

"What'd you draw?"

I smiled and blushed slightly. "Uh, it's nothing, just a sketch of something."

"Let me see it," he said, reaching out his hand for the pad of paper in mine.

"Really, it's nothing Logan; it's not even that good."

"I don't care. Give it to me, I wanna' see it."

I reluctantly handed it over to him. He stared at it for a long time and my blush deepened from my embarrassment. He didn't seem to get it, but soon I realized that he got it, he was just studying it. Probably because he thinks it's shoddy, I thought. But his face didn't seem to show any type of emotion and so I couldn't quite peg what he thought.

"You did this?" he asked.

I nodded my head as I bit my bottom lip. "Yeah, this morning while you were asleep. I just finished it."

"So this is what I look like while I'm sleepin'," he said, nodding his head approvingly. "Not too bad."

"Thank you," I said as he handed the book back to me. "I like you, you're fun to draw."

"Well maybe you can do it while I'm awake some time," he said with a slight smile.

"Perhaps I will."

"Perhaps," he repeated.

I laughed and shook my head at him. "Does the offer for getting in bed with you still stand?"

"You couldn't knock it down if you tried, darlin'," he joked, causing me to laugh some more.

I stood and laid my back in the chair, taking my place. I walked to the other side of the bed and sat down, lifting the covers as I swung my legs and feet underneath them. It was soft and warm, making me feel instantly comfortable.

"I still stand by the argument that you're bed's more comfortable than mine," I said, turning on my side so that I could look at him.

He laughed. "What kind of dream did you have?"

"Just some weird dream."

"Weird how?"

"Weird like you and I were making out weird," I said honestly.

He looked down at me with a cocked eyebrow. "Really?"

"No, I just made that up because the real dream was something embarrassing and I didn't want to tell you," I lied sarcastically. "Yes really. We were in here in your room and I was going to give you a kiss on the cheek, but you turned your head just as I was and I kissed your mouth instead. We started making out then you bit my lip and made me bleed."

"Hm," he said thoughtfully. "It wasn't all that bad, though, was it?"

I laughed at him. "Aside from you biting my lip, not it wasn't bad," I said, shaking my head, "it was just weird."

"So," he said, "where'd you learn to draw like that?"

"Like what?"

"That good."

"I don't know, I always enjoyed it so I just kept doing it. I guess I just kept getting better at it."

"I bet you could make good money outta' that."

"Who would want to buy a picture with your mug on it?" I joked.

"I'm not talkin' about me; I'm talkin' about other people."

"I don't like drawing other people, though."

He looked over and blinked. "Really?"

"Don't get cocky on me now, sweet cheeks. I love you and all but you really can't afford for your head to be any bigger."

He began to laugh but then turned serious, as there was a knock on the door. He swore. "It's Scooter."

He stood abruptly, pulling the covers with him, which would have been fine, had I not been sitting on the edge of them. But I was, however, and that cause me to roll off the side of the bed, into the floor with a loud 'thud'.

"I'm all right," I whispered from where I lay, my back hurting slightly.

Logan sighed as he opened the door. "Yeah?"

"Have you seen my niece? She's not in here room and she didn't come down for breakfast?" Scott asked.

"I'm sure she's lyin' around here somewhere. She'll probably pop up soon," Logan said and I could tell he was smirking. I sat up from the floor and pushed the hair from my face, pulling a few strands from my mouth. "See, told you."

"Hi Uncle Scott," I said sheepishly, my head and shoulders barely visible over the bed.

They were both staring at me with the same expression, though I wasn't sure exactly what it was. Almost a pity, surprised and amused look.

"Why are you down there?" Uncle Scott asked.

I smiled the best I could, attempting to look natural. "I uh…was checking out the floor. You know, soft pine wood flooring really _isn't_ soft. Curious, isn't it?"

They both continued to stare at me. "Yeah, almost as curious as why you're in the floor of Logan's bedroom at eight o'clock in the morning."

"Well…I uh, I couldn't sleep, so I got up. Nothing happened, I was just drawing."

"Is that so?" he asked skeptically.

I nodded my head fervently. "Uh huh," I said, my bangs swinging in front of my face.

"You wouldn't happen to have any proof of this, would you?" he asked, an eyebrow rising over his glasses.

"Well, yes, actually. My sketchpad's in that chair. I suppose that you could look at it."

He walked over to it, picked up the book, and began to flip through it. He stopped in the middle and looked thoughtfully at one of the pictures. "You drew all of these?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, standing from the floor and tucking the hair behind my ears.

"Who is this supposed to be?" He turned the pad towards me to show a sketch that I had done a few weeks back. It was of a fairly young man with black hair and dimples in his cheeks.

"Well, it's you…only without your glasses," I said, my sentence ending quietly. "Although that's not the one I did today."

I walked over to him, took the sketchpad from his hands, and began flipping through it myself. He stopped me on one of the pages. "That's Katie," he said.

"Yeah." I sighed. "She doesn't look like that anymore, but this was of before she got real bad." We both shared a pained silence as Logan stood awkwardly by the door with his arm folded across his chest. I continued flipping until I got to the one that I just had finished. "Ah, here it is, this is what I dew this morning. See the date at the bottom."

He took it from my hands, looked at it, then to Logan, and then back to it. "This is really good, Delia…despite who it's of."

I smiled at him. "Thank you."

He handed the book back to me. "You missed breakfast," he said.

"Yeah, I know."

"I have to get to class; I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. Be good and don't get into any trouble," he told me, giving me a kiss on the forehead.

"Do I ever?" I smiled.

"You might with this one," he said, passing by Logan. "_Both_ of you stay out of trouble."

"Will do. Love you Uncle Scott."

"I love you too sweetheart," he said, right as Logan shut the door.

I laughed at the scowl on his face. "You're gonna' be the death of me, kid."

"But you just love me so darn much."

"You sure about that?" he asked with the double whammy: a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

"Yes I am," I said confidently.

"Go get dressed," he ordered abruptly.

"Why?"

"'Cause we missed breakfast, so we're goin' out."

I went to my room and got dressed, just as he ordered. When I was done and Logan had critiqued my outfit of a purple sundress with a green sweater and brown cowboy boots, we went downstairs. We were about to leave when the Professor stopped us.

"Delia, Officer Johnson is on the phone in my office. He would like to speak with you."

Logan and I followed behind him as he led us to his office. Once there, I walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver that was lying on the desk.

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

"Hey Delia, how are you? I hope I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"I'm doing pretty well, thank you. And no, you're not interrupting anything; I was just going out for some breakfast. I'm glad you caught me before we left."

"Oh, and who's 'we'?" he asked teasingly.

"He's just a friend I met up here."

"A guy, huh? How old is he?"

"I don't know," I said. "Logan, how old are you?"

"A hundred and five," he answered.

"I'm being serious."

"So am I. I'm gonna' wait out in the hall, kid." He and the Professor than left.

"I don't know how old he is, Bob," I lied, figuring that a hundred and five isn't a typical answer for someone's age and that perhaps he wouldn't believe me anyway.

"Do I need to do a background check on this guy, have a talk with him, or what?"

I smiled. "We're not dating, we're just friends. Thanks for the offer, though. How's mother?"

He let out a loud sigh and his tone became more serious. "She's okay now, but she left the rehabilitation clinic without being released again yesterday. I only found her because I was called to the scene of the rally where she was."

"What rally?"

"Have you not seen the news?"

"No actually, I haven't."

"They held the biggest anti-mutant rally here in town yesterday. Katie was part of it. Apparently one of the nurses that worked at the clinic had been planning on going and when your mother heard about it, she talked the nurse into taking her with her. They were both arrested."

"Super freakin' fantastic," I said dry and sarcastically. How could she be that way? How could she hate us the way that she did? "Is she okay? I mean, where is she now?"

"She's back at the clinic and she's doing pretty well. I've got some guys down there to watch after her specifically now, so I don't think you should worry."

"Thank you Bobby, I really appreciate this, but maybe I should come home now. These people obviously don't know how to do their job and I can take better care of her than they are."

"No, you've not even been gone for three months yet, you're not coming home now. This was supposed to be so that you could finally have some time to yourself. Coming home now would defeat the whole purpose. Stay where you are and I'll take care of her. Now, don't get worried if you don't hear from me in a while, because I'm not going to call unless something important happens." I attempted to let out a sigh, but instead it came out as something else. "Did you just growl at me?" he asked.

"Yeah, but not really at you, sorry." Uncle Scott had been right; Logan's bad habits were beginning to rub off on me. "Right, I'll just stay put then."

"I'm going to visit her today, is there anything that you would like me to pass along to her?"

I thought for a moment. "Yeah, tell her that he daughter isn't listening to the stars. Ask her what the penalty is for that. I'll talk to you later, bye." I didn't wait for a reply before hanging up.

"You done?" Logan asked, opening the door and coming back into the office.

"Yeah. I just need to talk to Uncle Scott before we leave, though."

"Alright, we can go find him."

Together we walked the halls of the school, trying to find Scott's classroom. After a few minutes of searching, we found him teaching his science class to around twenty teenagers. I knocked on the door and waved for him to come out.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking concerned as he closed the door behind him and joining us in the hall.

"Have you seen the news lately?" I asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Have you seen anything about the anti-mutant rally over in Connecticut?"

"Uh, yeah, they've been talking about it all day, why?"

"I just talked to Bobby Johnson and he said that mother was there."

"How? Do those people not know how to keep their patients from escaping?"

"She left with a nurse. Apparently the nurse had been planning on going to the rally and when mother heard her talking about it, she talked the nurse into taking her with her."

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah, he said that she's fine now," I said, my voice slightly shaking.

"Okay, it's okay sweetheart," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me. He then pulled me into a half hug. "What's wrong Delia? This isn't just about the rally is it? She's been to those before. What are you really upset about?"

"I don't know; I'm just scared that something's going to happen."

"Like what?"

"I don't know," I said, fighting the urge to cry. "I don't know, I just have a really bad feeling right now."

He kissed me on top of my head and stroked my hair. "Nothing's going to happen sweetheart, I'm going to take care of you, I promise. Okay?" I nodded my head. "Now where were the two of you going?"

"We were going to get breakfast," I said, looking up at him.

"Okay," he told me, pushing the hair out of my eyes. He then reached into his pocked and pulled out his wallet before handing me a twenty dollar bill. "Here, why don't the two of you go do that and have some fun? If anything happens, I'll call you."

I took the money and nodded my head at him again. "Alright, thank you Uncle Scott."

He gave me a kiss on my forehead. "You're welcome. Go and have some fun, okay? And be careful, too."

"We will. I love you."

"I love you too sweetheart. Don't worry about anything."

I tried, but some times, things are easier said than done.


	8. More Than Words

Disclaimer: If you think I actually own rights to Marvel or Fox, where have you been for the last seven chapters? Do you even read my disclaimers? Hm...yes, by opening this page you have forfitted your own rights to all of the sweets in your house. I will be in touch with you for shipping days. Thank you and have a nice day. ;-) (Please enjoy!)

* * *

Nearly a week and a half later, I was hurrying through packing a small bag for my overnight stay in Brooklyn, when there was a knock at my door.

"Come in," I called.

The door opened and Uncle Scott walked in. "Getting ready to leave?" he asked, walking over to where I was standing.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to get some of my stuff together before we have to go."

"Shouldn't you have done that last night?"

"Uh, yeah, probably. But hey, it's me; I'm the most procrastinating person you know, remember?"

"No, you're just a procrastinator; you're the most optimistic pessimist I know."

"Yeah, what does that mean by the way?" I asked, stopping what I was doing and looking at him.

"It means that you always expect bad things to happen and are sure that they will, but you think that something good will always come out of it."

I laughed some and nodded my head. "That's so weird and yet…oddly so true. Wow."

"Do you need anything that I can get for you?"

"No, I think I'm set," I said, placing a pair of my pajamas into my bag and zipping it closed. "But thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, still standing beside me. "So what's with all of the black? You look like you're going to a funeral."

"Maybe I am."

"Thank you Johnny Cash," he joked.

"Well, he does sing a song about me."

"You're aware that he _kills_ the Delia in his song, right?"

"Yeah, I've heard the song once or twice, I think I gather that much from it," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Are you nervous?"

I let out a sigh. "A little bit, yeah. I don't even know what to expect. I'm starting to think that this whole thing is just…crazy."

"You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"I know…I know. I feel like I need to, though. Perhaps everything's only far more complicated than it seems because I'm making it that way."

"Maybe," he said. We both stood quietly for a while. "Really, what's with all of the black?"

"I'm trying to look like an adult instead of a six year old or a cartoon character. Is it working?"

He smiled at me. "Yeah, you sort of look depressed compared to what you always wear, but yeah, you look pretty grown up."

I was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a black sweater over it and a pair of black ballet flats. My hair was down and still slightly damp from just getting out of the shower. I had decided to try to make a good impression on my father's family and thought that wearing brightly colored, whimsical clothing might be slightly off putting.

"Hey kid, you ready?" Logan asked, appearing in my doorway.

"Yeah, let me tell Uncle Scott bye and we can go."

"I'm gonna' wait downstairs."

"Alright, I'll be down in a bit." I waited until he was gone and then turned back to Scott. "Are _you_ nervous?"

"A little bit."

"About what, me staying alone with Logan overnight?"

"Yeah, that too, but I'm also nervous about you meeting these people. I don't want you to get hurt by them. Enough people have done that to you already."

"I'm going to be okay, I'm pretty tough skinned. I don't think that there's too much that they can do to me in just a few hours that can hurt me too badly."

He pulled me to him and hugged me. "Just be careful Delia, I love you."

"I love you, too Uncle Scott. I'll see you when we get home tomorrow. Bye."

"Alright, bye."

* * *

It took nearly four hours for us to get to Brooklyn. Once there, we checked into the hotel down the street from the address that I had been given for my father's parent's house.

"Hm," Logan said, walking through the door of our room. "I've seen worse."

I followed in behind him and looking around. It wasn't _too_ bad. It wasn't dirty or anything, just severally outdated. The walls were a light, pea green color and the floor was covered in an orange, shag carpeting. There was a photo each hanging over both beds. They were of some weird looking log cabin with the same color schemes as the room. The bedspreads were covered in a mixture of an outdated flower print and a geometric pattern in brown, orange and green.

"It's not that bad, at least it's clean. I'm just not sure that anyone's stayed in here since the seventies."

"I wouldn't've stayed here then."

"Do you even remember the seventies?" I asked, tossing my bag onto the bed closest to the bathroom.

"No, but you know what they say; if you remember 'em, you didn't live through 'em."

"Yeah, I think they were referring to being high rather than losing your memory through a mutant experimentation program."

"You never know, kid."

"I'm pretty sure that's not what they were talking about. Anyway, the point is; it's not terrible. Besides, it's only one night, right?"

"Don't even have to stay the night, if you don't want to."

I smiled at him. "It's fine. Like you said; I've seen worse," I told him, looking around. "Actually, I've _lived_ in worse."

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Really?"

"Hey, drugs and alcohol aren't cheap, so that leaves little money for nice apartments. I lived in a motel for about six months…that actually wasn't too bad, everyone who lived there was pretty nice to me." He kept looking at me curiously. "What? Did you think I lived in a big nice house, or something? I told you that I don't keep homes for long."

"Yeah, but by homes I didn't think you were talkin' about motels."

"What did you think I was talking about? Sorry if I misled you, but we usually live in one-bedroom apartments in the dive parts of town, because those are the cheapest. I had been sleeping on a couch for three years when I get to the school." I stopped and laughed dryly for a moment. "Mother thinks I'm only being polite by always giving her the bedroom."

"Why do you?"

"Because it's easier to hear her when she leaves if I'm always sleeping by the door." I sat down on the bed that I had claimed and cradled my head in my hands. "I worked for _seven_ years in a diner and all I ever did was go from sleeping on one crappy couch to another in some dump apartment in the worst parts of Connecticut. I'm going to be twenty-six soon and what have I ever done with my life? Most people my age have already gone through college and started their careers. And look at me," I said, waving my arms around and indicating to the room around us. "I'm back at square one. I'm in some weird hotel room in Brooklyn, New York because I'm here to meet family I never knew that I had because I have severe complex problems and need people that will love me. I have done absolutely _nothing_ with my life."

"You've taken care of your mother."

"And she doesn't even want me to do that."

"Well if you always did what people wanted you to do, where would you be?"

"I would be boxing or going to college."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know…I don't even know." I looked up at him as tears brimmed by eyes. I hurriedly wiped them away. "I'm sorry, I'm just tired."

"Don't apologize, kid," he said, sitting down on the bed beside me.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do. I know mother's not going to live much longer and when she's gone…what am I supposed to do?"

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "Hey, you're twenty-five, all right? You're smart, you're gorgeous and this ain't it, darlin'. You ain't gonna' live in some dump for the rest of your life, all right?"

"You think so?" I asked, looking up at him with tear glazed eyes.

He nodded at me, keeping his eyes locked with mine. "Yeah."

I curled up next to him and we both sat quietly for a while. "Logan?"

"Yeah?"

"You said you thought I was gorgeous. Do you really?"

He cleared his throat and shifted a little on the bed. "Don't tell me you don't already know you are."

"Well, I don't think I'm ugly or anything."

"Are you serious? You really don't think you're pretty?"

"Not exactly."

"How?"

"I let out a small laugh. "How what?"

"How can you not think that you're…" he paused and cleared his throat again. "How do you not know you're beautiful?" I shrugged my shoulders. He looked at me, his brow furrowed and his mouth turned down in a frown. "You're really not fishin' for compliments, are you? You really don't believe me."

"I guess when someone says you aren't enough, you just believe them."

His frown deepened. "Who told you that?"

Maybe it wasn't normal. Maybe it wasn't right. My life never had been, but perhaps it was time for me to really think about things and reevaluate my personal truths.

"Mother," I nearly whispered. After hearing how he had reacted when I told him that someone had said it to me, I almost felt ashamed to even tell him who it was.

He swore and stood. He then began to pace in front of me. "She told you that?" he asked, looking near livid.

"Well, it's not as bad as it sounds, I'm sure. It's not as if she told me that I was ugly…it's just… This is silly," I said, waving my hand dismissively.

"No it's not," he said, stopping in front of me, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Logan, there are worse things in life then not having people believe that you're beautiful."

"What? Like hatin' you."

I lowered my head, not wanting to look at him. "You promised that you wouldn't throw that up in my face," I said, then added quietly, "Mother loves me in her own way."

"Yeah, well you promised you were gonna' be honest with me, so we're even."

I lifted my head, looking up and meeting his eyes with a certain amount of fury that being accused of lying can bring. "Even? What haven't I told you the truth about?"

"You honestly think your mother loves you?"

"I have to. If I don't, then I don't have anything."

He ran his hand over his face. "That's why you keep goin' back to her? You wanna' run away from here 'cause you're scared of gettin' close to people and then havin' them hurt you. When you're there with her, you don't have to go through the disappointment of findin' out that she's gonna' let you down and hate you, 'cause you know she always will. With everyone else you gotta' go through figurin' out how they're gonna' hurt you, 'cause you're sure that they will. If your own mother does, why wouldn't everyone else, right?"

"It's not that simple," I said, not even bothering to wipe away the tears from my face.

"Then explain it to me!" he yelled. "Why are you doin' this to yourself? Why do you let her do this to you? You're just waitin' for a hole to open up and for everything you got that's actually good in your life to be taken away from you."

"It's because it always does."

"That's not how it's supposed to work, though."

"And how would you know?" I yelled back.

"'Cause lovin' people ain't about tearin' 'em down until all they can think about is how they can work hard enough to make you stop hurtin' 'em. You shouldn't have to worry about if your mother's gonna' love you or not."

"Well I do, okay? Because that's life."

"Not it's not."

"It's_ my_ life!"

"It doesn't have to be."

"Why do you care what I do? It's none of your business," I said, lowering the sound of my voice and staring up at him with an extreme amount of anger and fascination. No one had ever laid the situation out like he just had. No one had ever cared to. If you don't talk about it, if we only mentioned it in a hushed and low voice, then it wasn't really true. But he had said it, yelled it and although I was more furious with him at that moment that I had been the entire time I had known him, I was also curious as to why he was doing it. Why he cared.

He swore and shook his head at me. "I'm in some stupid hotel four hours away from my own freakin' home just so you can meet more people that're gonna' hurt you. From the moment I met you it was my freakin' business."

"They're _not_ going to hurt me."

"Well accordin' to your theory they are. Everyone does, right? Your father died and left you to live with a mother who doesn't even love you. They both did, Scooter will, I'm goin' to, right? Why won't they do it, too? You know what your problem is? You don't need people to love you, you need people to hurt you 'cause you think you deserve it. You think that's love. Let me tell you something, kid; love ain't supposed to hurt. It ain't about tearin' someone down to feel better about yourself. It's about wantin' to make the other person happy."

"Which is what I'm doing."

"No, you're doin' everything you think she wants to try and make her happy and it's makin' you miserable. You're not supposed to feel that way, you never should. Both people have to try for it to work and from what you're tellin' me darlin', she doesn't want it to work. You do."

"Well that's awfully rich, coming from _you_," I spat.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that you don't know about anything you're talking about. Loving someone isn't supposed to make other people hate you for it. You said that love is not supposed to hurt other people, but screw that, because that's exactly what you've done."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that you're standing there, judging me for my decisions, but how about this one, Logan; love isn't about making a pass at a married woman." He looked away from me and ran his hand over his mouth. "Yeah, it's one thing for you to stand there and pick me apart and tell me what to do, that's easy, isn't it? But it's something else completely for me to bring up something about you, right?"

He walked to the door, stopped, then turned and stormed back to stand right in front of me. "You don't know what you're talkin' about, all right? So just leave it alone."

"Well then," I said, trying to keep my voice even and controlled, and not managing to do so very well. The rage and bitterness inside of me fought its way into my mouth and spewed out with my very words. I stared up at him from underneath my eyebrows; my whole body shook with anger. "Why don't you explain it to me?" I said, throwing his words back into his face.

"You wanna' play this game little girl, fine. I'm better at it than you are." His eyes were focused on mine, his nostrils were flared and his breathing was heavy with anger. I took a moment to notice myself and realized that I was doing the exact same thing.

I focused on my breathing and tried to calm it the best that I could. I was mad. Scratch that; I was pissed. Absolutely livid. However, there was a reason for us to be arguing. It had started with a point, but it just seemed to have gotten lost in our yelling and pointing of fingers.

"I don't want to play games Logan," I said quietly as I stood. "I only want for things to start making sense. Not everything's as easy for me as it is for you. I'm still a kid, I'm still lost and I still have to finger things out on my own." Then I walked out the door and left.

Barbara Streisand was wrong; people who need people are _not_ the luckiest people in the world.

* * *

I walked up and down the small street we were staying on for about half an hour before I finally calmed down and got up enough nerve to go to my grandparent's home. I had been nervous before, but added with the argument with Logan; I was nearly shaking with nerves as I rang the doorbell to their apartment. My heart pounded and my chest tightened, making it hard to breathe as I waited for someone to answer. After only a minute, which felt more like thirty, I heard footsteps fall behind the door and then it opened. A woman answered and smiled at me.

"Hi, you must be Delia," she said.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, I'm Eliza; it's nice to meet you." I reached out my hand to shake hers. "Oh dear, no, we don't shake hands in this family."

"Oh," I said, retracting my hand. "Sorry." Great, I thought, we've just met and I've already offended her.

"Come here, give me a hug," she said, pulling me to her in an awkward hug. She then took my hand and pulled me into the apartment. "Joe, everyone, Delia's here," she called out.

I felt way in over my head as she led me into her home, down a hall and into a living room. There were five people, two woman and three men, sitting around on a couch and a few armchairs. The whole place smelled oddly of a mix between cats and too strong cleaning sprays with scented candles that I wasn't quite capable of distinguishing just what scent they were.

"Hi," I said, trying to smile through my nerves, though I was sure that it had come across as more of a look that of a frightened woodland creature staring into the headlights of an oncoming car.

"Joe darlin, this is Delia, I do hope I'm pronouncing that right dear," Eliza said, turning to me.

"Yes, that's right."

"Good," she said, patting my hand. "As I was saying darling, this is Delia, our granddaughter. How very odd is it to say that? Anyway dear, you must be curious about who these people are. This is Kevin, your uncle, and his wife Mary," she said, pointing to the couple sitting on the couch.

"Hello," I barely had the chance to say before she was continuing with her introductions.

"This here is Joe, your grandfather. That's your aunt Cathy and this is her husband Denis. I do hope that's not too confusing for you." I opened my mouth to say 'no' but before I could, she was already ushering me into a chair facing everyone else. "Good, would you care for some lemonade?"

I stared up at the very talkative woman in front of me and tried to process everything that I was hearing. "Yes please."

She took the pitcher from the coffee table in the center of the room and filled a glass with lemonade before handing it to me. "Cookie dear?" she asked, holding out a plate of cookies that looked too perfect to be homemade.

"No thank you, I'm quite full at the moment."

"Well, just help yourself when you feel like one," she said and then sat herself in a chair beside Joe, looking perfectly demure. She reminded me of June Cleaver and I wondered if she wore the pearl necklace that she was wearing then, even when she vacuumed. "Now, do tell us how your trip was. Did you find everything all right?"

"Yes, everything was great, we got here fine."

"We? Oh, did you bring a guest? You should have brought them with you; we would have loved to have met them. Wouldn't we Joe?"

"Yes, I'm sure," he answered.

No you wouldn't, I thought.

"Well, he was quite tired, so he stayed in."

"Oh, how long have the two of you been married?" she asked as I took a sip of my drink, promptly causing me to choke on it.

"I'm sorry?" I asked.

"Well I assume that the two of you are married since you both traveled here together."

"Well…no."

"So you're dating? We haven't quite missed the wedding just yet, then. How wonderful!"

"I, uh, well…no," I stammered. "We're not dating either. We're actually just friends, really."

"So who are you dating then?"

"Well, I'm not at the moment, actually."

Cathy laughed. "You're twenty-five, right?" she asked.

"Yes."

"You better start dating soon or you'll be old and single."

"I'll keep that in mind." I blinked.

"How can you been single? You're adorable and look at those dimples!" Eliza said. "Tell me dear, where did you get those?"

"My Uncle Scott."

"So you have another uncle?" Kevin asked.

"Yes, I'm actually staying with him for the time being."

"You don't have your own house?" Mary asked.

"Uh, no, not at the moment anyway."

There was a round of 'hm's and then silence from them all. I had never felt so small in my life.

"So what exactly do you do? Since you don't have a husband you must have to work yourself," Cathy said.

"Well…I don't, at the moment. As I said, I'm living with my uncle and his family."

"So your uncle is supporting you as well as a family?" Denis asked.

"Not quite."

"Well either he is or he isn't dear, it's a simple question," Eliza said.

No it's not, I thought.

"I am staying with my uncle but I suppose that I should clarify that he and his wife are teachers at a boarding school where they both live. His family is the other teachers, as they grew up there together."

"So he is supporting you, then?" Cathy said.

"No, he's not."

"But you said that you don't have a job. If he's not supporting you than who is?"

"The school where I'm staying allows me to live and eat there for free. There's really not much need for me to go outside of the school for anything."

"Well what did you study in school?" asked Kevin.

"I'm afraid that I didn't get to go to college," I said and then remembered what Logan had said about that not being it for me and added; "Not yet anyway."

They all shared a laugh. "If you haven't gone by now, you never will," Mary said.

We continued to make small talk for twenty minutes as they also continued to make me feel smaller and smaller with each new thing we talked about. I remembered what I had promised the Professor about leaving if I found out why my father and his family never spoke, but I needed to stay a little longer. There was more I needed to know.

"I do apologize, this is a bit off topic, but the reason I came here was to learn about my father. I'm afraid I didn't get to know him better."

"Typical of William to run off and leave his child," Eliza spat as Joe nodded his head in agreement.

"I beg your pardon, but my father didn't leave me, he passed away when I was eight."

"Hm," snuffed Eliza. "One less thing to worry about in this world then, I say. Joe darling, do pour me some more lemonade."

"I-I'm sorry?" I stammered.

"Dear, you really should have that stutter checked on. At least I know now why you're not married," Eliza said, sipping her newly poured drink.

"It's not a stutter, I'm just having a hard time understanding what happened between you that made you feel the way that you do about him."

"How could we not? What with what he became and all."

"You stopped talking with him because he was a boxer?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"A boxer?" She laughed. "Is that what he did? Always had a fascination with those sweaty men on TV beating each other, William did. I never allowed him to watch it in my house, mind you. But he would sneak around to a friend's house and watch them." She let out a sigh and shook her head.

"So if you didn't know he was a boxer, then what _did_ he become that you didn't agree with?"

"Agree with?" she shrieked. "We not only didn't _agree_ with it, we were down right _disgusted _by it. Your father was a monster, be sure of that. And one who refused to get help for his problem."

I felt sick to my stomach and scared. "What are you talking about?" I asked. I closed my eyes, preparing myself for what she was going to say. For the terrible secret that had apparently made them hate their own son and what he kept from my mother and me. I had never been so nervous before.

"Your father, I'm afraid, was…" Eliza paused and took a deep breath. "He was a mutant."

My eyes snapped open, my jaw dropped and my mouth ran dry. I suddenly felt sicker to my stomach than I had before. "Oh my word," was all I could manage to say.

"You had no idea?" Joe asked.

I shook my head dumbly.

"Would you tell other people that sort of thing? He was probably ashamed of it, as he rightfully should have been. It's terribly disgusting," Eliza said with a shudder.

"But he was my daddy," I said quietly, shocked by the news. There was no way that mother could have known. She hated us as much as they did, if not more.

"Well, he was also a sick freak of nature," Eliza spat.

"No, he wasn't sick, that's just who he was," I argued. "You can't hate people for who they are."

"It wasn't who he was, he could have kept it a secret, he didn't have to tell anyone. Judging by your reaction, he learned from his mistake of telling us. He could have gotten help, but he chose not to. That was the decision he made when we decided to sever ties with him. We pretty much stopped talking about him after that," Joe said.

"Help? What kind of help do you think he could've gotten? Mutation is not a disease that can be cured. It's a genetic difference. You can't take a pill to change the color of your skin, or you hair or your eyes and you can't do it to change being a mutant, either," I defended.

Eliza looked at me hard for a moment. "You sure seem to be defensive about the subject. Why is that?" she asked. "Are _you _a mutant?"

Everything stopped. My heart, my breathing, every blood vein in my body seemed to stop pumping blood. Everything except for my brain, which went into overdrive trying to process all of the information. I swallowed hard, but my mouth was dry, so it only made a loud sound.

"No, I'm not," I lied. "But I don't believe that we are born to be a certain way. We all choose how we want to be and so I completely disagree with you that all mutants are sick people. Some of them are, yes, but so are some normal people. Being a mutant has nothing to do with it. And I'm sorry that you hated my father, but more so, I'm glad that he was nothing like any of you. He was a good man and he never judged my mother or me for anything," I said and then left.

I walked out the door, jogged across the street and then ran down to the hotel where Logan and I were staying. Once I arrived to our room door, I opened it, closed it behind me and then slid down it, landing on the floor as I began to cry.

Logan, who was lying on his bed sleeping, sat up, jumped from it, and ran to me. "Hey kid, what's wrong?" he asked, crouching down beside me. His eyes were wide with concern and having just been woken.

I wanted to answer him, but I couldn't. I was crying too hard. It had hit me like a wave as soon as I had stepped into our room.

The Professor had warned me about meeting them. I should have listened.

Daddy was a mutant. He had kept a secret from us.

They had asked me if I was a mutant. I got scared and lied to them.

I cried and cried until I was unable to catch my breath. I opened my mouth to say something, but then closed it before jumping up and running to the bathroom. The heavy sobbing had caused me to become sick, so much so that I began vomiting. Yes, I know, not the most glamorous thing in the world.

Logan followed me into the bathroom and again, crouched down beside me where I was kneeling in front of the toilet. He took my hair and pulled it away from my face. "You need me to get anything for you?" he asked.

"A cold, wet towel so I can put it around my neck," I said before bowing my head to get sick in the toilet once more. He stood and then quickly did as I asked him, ringing out the excess water from the towel before placing it around my neck. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it," he said, helping me as I tried to get up and moved to sit on the edge of the bathtub. "Here, take your sweater off, you need to cool down." He pulled the sweater from my arms then folded it and placed it on the sink counter before sitting down beside me. "What happened?"

I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself, even though I was still crying. "They hated him, they hated daddy. He was a mutant and they hated him," I sobbed. "When I found out, I tried to take up for him, but then they asked if I was one and-and, I said no, I lied. I lied."

He put his arm around me and pulled me to him tightly. "Hey, it's alright. You don't have to trust people if you don't want to, not about this. It's none of their business who you are."

I continued to cry, though. I didn't exactly know why, and I'm sure he didn't either. But never the less, he continued to hold and comfort me. In some odd way, he reminded me of my father. Whenever I would cry, he would hold me to him and hug me, then he would tell me to cry for different things before always ending with 'And cry for the stars because they will never know my darling Delia'.

Perhaps I was crying because his family had the chance to know him longer than I and yet they chose to hate him and push him away.

Perhaps I was crying because I felt guilty and ashamed of lying about being who I was.

Perhaps I was crying because I needed my daddy to be there to tell me to cry for them because they will never know his darling Delia.

Perhaps it was all of that and more.

"All I have is Uncle Scott. Without him, I don't have anyone, not even mother. What am I going to do, Logan?" I cried.

He pulled me to him closer and held me tight. "You got me Delia. I'm all yours darlin'."

It was hardly 'darling Delia' but it had the same comforting feeling to it. I sank deep into the feeling of his arms and wondered if that was happiness: The two of us in a bathroom of a motel room in Brooklyn, me crying and him holding me.

Was happiness that safe feeling in the back of your mind as you emptied your heart out to someone, to have them give themselves to you?

Was it being able to argue with someone while still knowing that they will never hate you? That was a foreign feeling to me. It had been so long since I had known it, though at one time I had. He didn't hate me. Not only did he not hate me, but he trusted me. And there was no way I could escape what I felt for him. Oh my word, how I trusted him.

Something happened that day in that room where I surrendered all of myself over to him, because I knew he could take care of me. Not only could he, but he would, he was. Maybe happiness is love and love is something you can't explain, it's deeper than words. And if there was something I had learned from Logan, it was that words aren't always needed. Some times, there's a connection between two people and they never have to speak to know how the other feels. If that's happiness, I found it that night with him.


	9. A Time of Change

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to anything...like, at all. It's quite sad really... Okay, now I'm just depressed, thanks.

Sidenote: The latter part of this chapter was writtenwhile playingEvanescence 'Bring Me To Life' on repeteand so it made it seem a little bit more dramatic. If you happen to have a copy of the song on hand, you could play it and I would appreciate the mood music. Anyway, I dedicate this chapter to my grandfather who always wanted me to be a female boxer...I don't know why, but he did. So yeah, I hope ya'll enjoy!

* * *

"Hey, I'm sorry about yesterday," Logan said as we were driving back to the school.

We had been driving for about two hours and I had just woken back up. We had decided to leave as soon as possible and he had let me sleep for a couple of more hours on our way back to the mansion that morning.

I had forgotten about the argument. In light of the more serious events that had happened, I had completely forgiven him about it.

"Don't be. I know that you were just…well, you weren't being _nice_, because you were yelling at me, but the intent was good," I said with a small laugh. I then let out a sigh. "There's something about you Logan, I don't know what it is, but I feel comfortable around you. I tell you things that I've never told anyone else. Not even Uncle Scott." He looked over at me. "Of course I would appreciate it if you didn't tell _him_ that. He thinks he's a little more up to date with me than he really is." I smiled and he looked back to the road.

"Well I'm sorry that I brought up what you told me about your mother. I said I wouldn't do that to you and I did. You trusted me enough to tell me and I shouldn't've thrown that up to you."

"But you didn't do it to be mean, though." He let out a sigh. "Did you?"

"No."

"Then don't worry about it." We were silent for a few moments as we both kept our eyes on the road. "I'm sorry, too."

He looked back over at me. "For what?"

"Saying that you didn't know what you were talking about. I'm sure you do, I was just mad. And for also bringing up that thing about Jean. That's really none of my business and I had no right to say that to you."

"It's fine," he said and again we were silent for a few minutes. "Nothing happened."

"What?"

"With me and Jean; nothing happened."

"Then why did you tell Uncle Scott that something did?"

"I kissed her, that was it. She chose him over me so I left her alone. I didn't do it to piss Summers off, he wasn't there and he didn't have to know about it. When we got home, I told him 'cause Jean was gone and I thought he oughta' know."

"Then why _did_ you do it?"

He didn't say anything for a minute and I thought that perhaps I had pushed too far. "'Cause I liked her," he answered quietly. "I did from the time I saw her."

"What happened? Why don't you like her any more?"

He looked over at me once again. "Who said I didn't?"

I thought for a moment. "Well, I'm really sorry then."

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "For what?" he asked again.

"That you lost your wife and Jean."

He let out a deep sigh and ran a hand over his mouth as he switched his vision back to the road, continuing to drive. "You learn to get over it, kid."

"No you don't," I said, turning in my seat to stare at him. "You lean to accept it and deal with it, but you don't learn how to get over it. When my daddy died, people always told me that I would, but I didn't, I still haven't. I wake up every morning and go through my routine. I go on with my life, I've learned to do that, but there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him. You have no idea how much I hate Father's Day," I said with a sad laugh. "The pain never goes away; it's just that after time, you stop noticing how much it hurts. You don't ever get over it, you just live with it."

"I don't remember my wife all that much and Jean…Jean was never mine to lose."

"But you loved them both, didn't you?"

He let out another sigh. "Yeah."

"I think that Jean probably loves you too, in her own way." He made a small, amused laugh. "And I'm sure that your wife adored you."

"Why are you sure of that?"

"Because I do."

* * *

It took us another two hours to get to the school, by that time we were there; it was just after ten that morning. Along with us, we brought rain, which quickly turned into a storm as we climbed the stairs to our rooms. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before and we were quite tired, so we hoped to catch up on it before it was time for lunch.

I opened the door to my bedroom as there was a clap of thunder and I jumped, making a small squeak. I heard Logan laugh at me from behind and turned around to see him leaning in his doorframe, laughing at me.

"Well, I'm certainly glad that you're finding the humor in this whole situation, as I don't find it too funny myself," I said.

"You can stay in here with me, if you want."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I tossed my bag into my room before shutting the door and hurrying across the hall to his room. "Thank you," I said, pulling off my shoes by his door as he shut it behind him.

There was a flash of lightening and I attempted to muffle a small whimper.

"Don't worry about it," he told me, walking to his bed. As he lay down, I joined him, trying to tune out the sound of the storm. "I don't get it," he said.

"Don't get what?"

"Why you're scared of a storm," he said, staring at me. He swore. "You've been through some pretty rough stuff, kid; I would think a little thunder storm wouldn't bother you."

"It's not like I want them to, I hate being scared of them, I don't know how to get over it, though."

"Have they always made you like this?"

"No, it started when I was about seven or eight, I guess. I don't know what happened, but I've been terrified of them ever since."

"Well anything that scared you that bad, it's probably good you don't remember it."

A silence fell between us as we settled into his bed to go to sleep. I would jump occasionally at the sound of thunder or flash of lightening, but for the most part, being there with him made me feel better."

"Logan-"

"Hm?"

"Do you think I'm…childish?"

"No."

"Really?" I asked, skeptical about his answer.

"Yeah."

"So you don't think that the way I dress, or act, or anything is in anyway childish?"

He opened one eye to look at me. "I think you're stuck between bein' and adult when you don't know how to be one, and bein' a kid that you never got to be. You got all the time you need to grow up, and there ain't nothing wrong with that, don't let anyone tell you there is, alright?"

"Yeah, alright."

"Now go to sleep."

I smiled. "Okay."

* * *

"Hey, how'd it go?" Uncle Scott asked me, pulling me aside before lunch.

I sighed and ran my hand back through my hair. "Not good. Remind me next time that there's always a reason behind having long lost relatives. If yesterday was any indication, they're probably stuck up snobs."

"I'm sorry sweetheart; I know that you were looking forward to getting to know them. If you want to talk to me about it, you know you can, right?"

"Yeah, I know, thanks, but I'm fine. It looks like you're going to be stuck with me a little longer, though."

He smiled at me. "Well since I know you're staying here now, I guess I can confess that they really weren't your family; I set the whole thing up," he lied jokingly.

I laughed. "I knew something seemed off."

His expression turned more serious. "How was Logan?"

"He did well. I know you don't like him Uncle Scott, but you should be proud of him; he took care of me."

"Well at least I don't have to worry about him then. Right?"

"Not in the least bite. I knew he enjoys pissing you off, but he's not a bad guy."

He nodded his head and sighed. "I'm sorry your trip wasn't what you thought it would be."

"It's fine. I'm just happy to be back here."

"I am too," he said, smiling at me. "Now let's get some lunch before it's all gone."

"Okay," I said and he began to walk away. "Uncle Scott?"

He turned and came back to me. "Yes?"

"Thank you guys…for everything, I mean it. I know me staying here is putting you out another room and I just really appreciate you doing this for me."

"Delia, you're not putting us out any. We have plenty of free rooms."

"I know, but the Professor paid for us to stay in Brooklyn last night, and you pay for me to go shopping whenever I want, among other things. I don't know that I'll ever be able to pay you guys back for everything you do for me."

"Hey, you're not supposed to, we're family, we're taking care of you because that's what families do. If I expected you to pay me back, I wouldn't have done any of it in the first place. More than over half the students living here don't pay for it. Most of them don't even still speak to their families. If it were up to me, I would want you to live here all the time."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really," he said, smiling. "It's good to see you happy…actually; it's just good to see you. We spent too many years not talking and I really enjoy you being here right now. This can be your home, not matter where you go, you can always come back and you'll always have a room here. I promise you that Delia, no matter what happens."

Some times even the simplest things in the world can make us happy. For instance; when I'm sick and someone brings me a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream. That makes me happy.

When I'm crying and someone wraps their arm around me when they don't know what else to do but just hold me. That makes me happy.

When someone says that they've missed me and would like for me to stay with them. That makes me happy. Right then, I was a _very _happy little girl.

* * *

That Friday was the first day of spring. Although not a big deal for me, there was apparently some soft of big festival going on in town. You could buy different sorts of food deep-fried on a stick and walk around in the heat with hundreds of other sweaty people. This was how Logan explained it to me. I edited out the grammatical errors and swearwords, however. Now, I enjoy chicken and a biscuit on a stick as much as the next person, but I don't particularly like crowds and one look at me you can tell that the sun and I don't get on too well. This is why I had opted to stay in rather than go out with the rest of the school.

But what I had decided to do was different. Ever since I had found out that my father had been a mutant, my mind hadn't stopped racing. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to think. Everything that I thought I knew was suddenly fragile and seemed to be falling apart. I knew that the older I became, the more secrets I found out about my family. But I thought that I had found them all out. I never even imagined that my father was a mutant. Mother hated us, she always had. How could she have believed that her soul was linked with that of a man's who had she known who he really was, would have hated him? Simple, she was full of it. People's souls and hearts aren't linked. It was only some stupid faith that she had fed to me as a child.

Ever since my argument with Logan, I had begun to reevaluate my life. Who was I? It seemed like a simple question, and the first time I had asked myself that, I thought it was a simple answer. I am Delia Walker. But then I realized; that's only my name. _Who_ am I? Well, I'm someone who loves sweets and drawing. My favorite movie is 'The Princess Bride' and my favorite colors are pink and purple. I love to read and watching shows on weddings. I hate waking up early and really rude people. I like to wear ribbons in my hair as well as pigtails, preferably both at the same time. I am someone who is ashamed of being a mutant and that is what hurt me the most upon realization.

"Hey, hidin' out in here?" Logan asked, entering the den and plopping down on the couch beside me.

"It's hardly hiding as there's no one to hide from, is there?"

He cocked an eyebrow. "Me."

"Aside from you. And if I_ were_ going to hide from you, I would leave the house. You can find me too easily here."

He stared at me and leaned in closer. "If you ever left, I'd find you too."

There were certain things that Logan said that got to me. They got inside of me and at times really shook me up. It wasn't so much the words as it was the way he said it. The way he would look at me when he did. My cheeks would flush hot and a shiver would run through me at the same time. He could catch my breath in my chest just by staring at me and I wasn't entirely sure that I disliked it.

I stared back at him. "You promise?"

"Yeah, I do."

I smiled at him. "Then I don't have any reason to be running off anywhere soon."

"Does that mean that you're not gonna' go home when summer gets here?"

My smile fell from my face and I looked away. "No, I'm going to go back home, but it's only just the first of spring, so we still have time to play."

He leaned back and let out an aggravated breath.

As if on cue, I heard the Professor in my head, speaking. "Delia, Officer Johnson is trying to contact you. You may use my office phone if you need; I believe that your mother wants to speak with you. I hope that you and Logan have a good evening. We shouldn't be much longer. Once the fireworks are over, we will be on our way home."

I stood. "You don't have to leave, I didn't mean to piss you off," Logan said.

"You didn't. I just got a message from the Professor saying that Officer Johnson was trying to get in touch with me and that mother wants to talk to me. So I'm going to his office to use his phone."

"Why?"

"Because he said I could use it."

"No, not why are you usin' his phone, why are you jumpin' up and runnin' to the phone to call her back?"

"Well I hardly jumped and I'm not quite running just yet," I joked, trying to get him to lighten up and stop from scowling at me.

"I'm serious kid, why are you doin' this?"

"Because she's my mother and if she needs to talk to me, then I'm going to let her."

"You don't need to talk to her. She ain't gonna' say anything that you need to hear. If it's important than she can tell that guy what it's about and he can tell you, but you don't need to talk to _her_."

"Don't tell me what I need or don't need to do, Logan. I'm a big girl, I can make up my own mind about talking to her or not, okay?"

He stood up and looked down at me. "Tell me you don't need to hear her tell you how bad you've screwed up her life so she can remind you why you shouldn't get close to people. Tell me you ain't tired or takin' care of her and the only reason you do is so that one day she might realize that you've given up your whole life for her and might actually be proud of you for once. Tell me it doesn't have anything to do with needin' to have her put you down 'cause that's what you think you deserve. Tell me you ain't addicted to her and I'll leave you alone, Delia. Look me in the eye and tell me that."

I looked up at him, staring him right in the eye. "Get out of my way, Logan; I have to use the phone."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Do you remember when we went out after that first hockey game we went to and you told me that you're mother believed that we can't change our lives 'cause we're born a certain way? When I asked you what you believed you said that you thought that she was just hidin' behind it as an excuse for what she did to you. Well guess what? You're doin' the exact same thing, kid. You're hidin' behind bein' her daughter as an excuse to not leave her alone. She's killin' you, and you wanna' make her happy, so you're turnin' into her."

I lifted my hand, reared it back and slapped him across his left cheek. "Don't you dare say that to me ever again! I am _not _turning into her. I would_ never_ do to my children what she's done to me."

"Then why are you so protective of her? You're scared to let her even know what you are. Which are you more ashamed of; bein' a mutant or her findin' out that you are one?"

I reared back my already red and swollen hand and slapped him on his cheek once again. He only let out heavy breaths from his nose and turned his head to look back at me. "You have _no_ right to say that to me. I don't see you out there telling the world what you are. So don't you start pointing a finger and judging me."

"What about your father, hm? How would he feel about his little girl just givin' control over to her mother? I wonder what he would think about how you just stopped tryin' and gave up everything? About how you started hidin' behind his death to cover up how you're just a scared little kid who doesn't know how to be on her own. Who needs someone to constantly bring her down so that she doesn't have to feel like she deserves more? How would he feel about how you just stopped fightin'? How would your father feel about that?" I reached back to slap him for the third time, but he stopped me, catching my wrist in his hand. "You wanna' hit me? Then hit me, I don't care kid, but I want you to tell me what he would think? You expect your mother to be disappointed in you, but what about him? He wanted you to be something else. He knew he wasn't always gonna' be around and he wanted you to fight back, didn't he? How hard did he work to keep your mother from hurtin' you while he was there? And what are you doin' now? Lettin' her hurt you. He taught you better than that, I know he did, someone had to, and all you're doin' now is disappointin' him. Your mother hates you for him dyin' instead of you, but the truth is; you hate her for the same reason."

I was angry and tears were filling my eyes. He let go of my wrist and I balled my hand into a fish and began to pound against his chest.

He had no right to bring up my father. He didn't know him and he didn't know that he would be disappointed in me.

I was not become my mother. I could never hurt the people in my life as recklessly without caring about the after effects as she had.

He had no right to stand there and let me hit him the way that I was.

I took my other hand and began to hit his chest with it along with my other one.

He had no right to know all of the things about me that I didn't want to tell. He shouldn't have known more about me that I did myself.

And so I hit him, taking full advantage of the fact that my bones wouldn't break against the solid adamantium under his skin. I stood there and tried to both emotionally and physically push him away. But, he wouldn't move. He wouldn't budge. He just stood grounded to the floor as I yelled at him. I didn't even know that I was yelling and it took me a while to realize not only was it me, but also what I was saying.

"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" I screamed, falling against his chest, sobbing.

I wasn't saying it to him. I didn't hate him. I was saying it to mother and I think he knew that. I think he understood that everything he had said was true and had struck a nerve. He had to know, he knew everything else about me.

He took his arms and wrapped them around me to keep me from falling to the floor. He petted and stroked my hair. "Sh, it's alright. It's alright, you gotta' stop cryin'. You gotta' catch your breath, baby, all right? Just calm down and breathe." But I couldn't. I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't catch my breath. So much so that I began hyperventilating. He sat me down on the couch. "Come on, kid, breathe."

"I…can't," I gasped.

"Everything's alright but you gotta' calm down so you can catch your breath."

"But I…I don't…really…hate you."

He took my face in his hands and wiped away the tears from my eyes. "You're allowed to if you want. I won't blame you for it."

I shook my head furiously, causing my bangs to swing in front of my face, still not able to breathe well. "I…don't."

He sat down beside me, pulled me to him, and held me. After five or ten minutes, my breathing calmed and I was okay.

"I'm sorry," I finally said, my voice hoarse from crying, yelling and gasping.

He kissed the top of my head. "It's fine. Don't worry about it," he said. "Let me see your hands."

I lay both hands on his leg. He then picked up my right one and looked at it before letting out a sigh. They were red, swollen and looked as if they were going to bruise pretty badly. Even though my bones couldn't break, my skin wasn't quite as resilient. As a matter of a fact, they were hurting something awful. They felt hot and I could feel the blood pounding through their veins.

"We need to put some ice on 'em, that might keep the swellin' down some, but I think they're still gonna' bruise."

"I'm sorry," I said again.

He looked at me. "I'm fine; you didn't hurt me," he said. "We gotta' go put something on your hands before they get any worse, alright?"

I nodded my head, causing my bangs to swing in my eyes and he pushed them away. "You don't have to forgive me."

"I know."

"Then why do you?"

He leaned in close to me. "Not everybody wants to hurt you," he said quietly. "I don't wanna' hurt you."

I believe that there are pivotal moments in our life that help us to change and shape our future. There are actions that can seep into our skin and grab hold of us from the inside, not letting go. Those actions can open our eyes and make us look around at who we are. Logan had done this more than once, but on that night, it had come to a major turning point for me. He had physically held me still and made me believe things that I had never wanted to believe.

He made me stop and see how I was only poisoning my own life by involving my mother in it. She was a toxic person, she felt bad about herself so instead of admitting it and trying to fix it, she made me feel the same way. It was a domino effect, it always had been. One comment bred a thousand thoughts, which bred a thousand more until I truly believed that I deserved to be treated as badly as she had treated me. And I would always go back and she would always be the same, continuing our game of nonstop abuse.

He stood there as I tried to push him away and proved something to me; not everyone leaves you when you need them. Though some of the most important people in my life had, he didn't move.

I needed my daddy there to protect me, but he died.

I needed Uncle Scott so that I didn't have to feel so alone about being a mutant.

I needed my mother, but I needed her to be healthy. I needed her to care about me. I needed her to believe in me. But she never did. She never cared, and certainly not so then.

I needed them all and yet they had left me when I was vulnerable and scared and wanted to give it all up. Without them, I was forced to leave it all on the inside and try to deal with it all on my own. I had to fake a smile and a laugh so that no one would ever know how bad it was. I dressed like a little kid because not only did I so desperately wish that I could go back to being one, to being innocent, but also because who really expects a girl dressed like a cartoon character to be in pain? Who would ever assume that under the ribbons and pigtails I was dying on the inside? That I was screaming for someone to please hear me and help me.

Logan not only didn't move, but he got it. He knew how badly I was hurting. How? Maybe he saw something in my eyes that he knew were in his when he thought of the people he had lost. When he thought of the pain that others had caused him. Maybe, despite our polar opposite methods, he realized that we both masked our problems in an attempt to hide how we really felt from everyone else. While I was more of a 'wide-eyes, childish, flash a smile and joke' person in order to keep intruders away, he was a 'back off or I'll beat the crap out of you, nothing's wrong, screw you' guy. Both worked, just not on each other.

Then there are words that, while seeming simple, speak a kind of truth that is painfully honest. Some times it's easier to lie to people, tell them what they want to hear and you don't have to worry about how they'll feel. We shy away from the truth because some times it not only hurts the person to whom you're speaking, but yourself also. Logan didn't care. He didn't care about hurting my feelings or pissing me off. As a matter of a fact, he had intended to do the latter. He knew that if he could tell me the right things, that I was turning into my mother for example, that he could get to me. He knew that he could get me to admit how much she had hurt me, how badly she had damaged me and how much I hated her.

He brought up my father, knowing that I loved him more than anything and wouldn't let him tell me that I was disappointing him, unless it was true. Which it was. He knew that everything he said about him struck a nerve inside of me until I was ready to fight. He had wanted that. Logan wanted me to fight back. He wanted me to show him that I wasn't as scared as I kept saying I was. He wanted me to prove something to him. He wanted me to prove that when my father had wanted me to be a fighter, he didn't necessarily mean a boxer. He wanted me to stand up for what I believed in. To not let people push me around. He never wanted me to go down without a fight and Logan knew this. I don't know how, but he did.

Perhaps it was because he was a fighter himself. He knew the look on my face. It was the same one the men wore when they've gone too many rounds, haven't gotten enough punches in and are just too tired to go on. They would rather give up and lose just so they can get some rest. With the exception of Valentine's Day, it had been a while since I had seen a match, but I remembered plenty of times where the guy who was struggling through it, had come in at the end and with a fast upper right hook, had won the fight. Logan knew I was tired and beaten, but he had intended to piss me off to pump me up enough to get back up and throw the winning punch.

There are words that anyone can say, but when the person saying them means then, they can send chills down your spin. Hearing Logan saying that not everyone wanted to hurt me gave me the chills. But it was when he was looking into my eyes, speaking at a near whisper and told me that he didn't want to hurt me, that I felt a sudden sense of overwhelming.

There were few times in my life where I saw the tables turn for something good rather than bad. We rarely get a chance to witness the beginning of something big. Like seeing the first clouds of a big storm, I felt scared but with Logan there, I felt prepared. The conversation between us had been less than innocent from the moment we began speaking. Almost immediately he had asked me if I would stay longer than just to the summer, and although I had said no and tried to defuse it with a joke, he had some how been preparing me for our fight.

I sat there, staring at him and I couldn't help but feel that this was the start of something much bigger than either one of us had ever planned.


	10. Penultimate Hell

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Marvel or Fox, but if I did, I would be given out little Wolvies like there ain't no tomorrow...sadly, I can't...but we can pretend. Please enjoy!

* * *

Logan and I found some ice packs in the infirmary, and after about thirty minutes, the swelling had gone down almost completely, leaving only a few bruises littered across my hands.

"Thank you," I said. I was sitting on one of the exam tables and he had pulled Jean's stool from her desk over to beside me and was sitting on it.

"Don't worry about it," he said. That was our routine; I would say 'thank you' and he would say 'don't worry about it'. It may have seemed odd to anyone else, perhaps the words may not have registered much emotion to other people, but to me, it was all I needed to hear. He truly didn't want me to worry about it because he didn't care to help me, it was something that didn't bother him to do, and so when he said it, he meant it. As he did with everything. He looked up at me from where he was examining my hands and gave me a small smile. "You wanna' watch the fireworks?"

"There's no way we can make it into town in time to see them. And even if we could, I thought you said you hated those things?"

"I do. That's why we're not goin' to watch them in town."

"Then where are we going to watch them from?" I asked, confused.

"Follow me," he said, standing.

I did as he said and he led me from the infirmary, down the hall lined with the X-Men uniforms, up the elevator to the student hall, down into the teacher's hall, into his room and out onto his balcony. He pulled himself up onto the banister railing and stood on it. He then reached out his hand for me to take.

"You've_ got_ to be joking."

"I'm not, now come on."

"What if I fall? I'll break my neck!"

He gave me a smirk. "I didn't think you could?" he said, quirking an eyebrow at me.

I rolled my eyes at him. "All right, so I can't technically break my neck, but if I fall, that's going to hurt really badly."

"I'm not gonna' let you fall, darlin'." I let out a sight and looked over the side of the balcony. I looked back up at him and it was more than being about whether I could force myself to climb up onto the roof of a mansion. It was about trusting someone completely enough to believe that if I did manage to fall, though he already said he wouldn't let me, that he would catch me. "Come on, I got you."

I let out another sigh. "Okay," I said, giving him my hand. He took it and then being mindful of its still painful state, grabbed my wrist and pulled me up onto the banister beside him. "This is crazy. It's no wonder Uncle Scott didn't want me hanging around with you."

He laughed. "I could be wrong, but I don't think he was talkin' 'bout me pullin' you up onto a roof when he told you that."

I placed a hand on his shoulder to balance myself. "And what do you think he was talking about?" I asked, swaying. His hands instinctively went down to my hips as I fell against his chest. I looked up at him and smiled, a blush pinching my cheeks. "Oh." I laughed. "He was talking about _this_."

He stared down at me for a long, silent minute before clearing his throat. "Just, uh, stand here. I'm gonna' climb up and then I'll, uh, help you up."

I nodded at him and balancing myself, took a couple of steps back so that he could turn around.

The banister railing was about two and a half feet or so wide, so I felt relatively stable on my own as I watched him use the ivy fence to place his foot in and climb up onto the roof. He then turned around and reached out his hand to me once again. I took it and followed his lead by pushing myself up with my foot on the siding of the school. Once I brought my feet up to touch the roof, he took hold of my arm with one hand and my waist with the other in order to help me stand.

That particular part of the roof wasn't as severally slanted as most of it was and I found that I could walk on it fairly easy. I followed him as he walked about ten feet over and four feet back, then he stopped and sat down.

The sky looked beautiful that night. It was a deep indigo color with the moon to our backs and the stars dotting it above us. There was a light wind and it carried the smells of the festival, up to us on top of the mansion, where we could see it going on down below. There was a mixture of cotton candy, popcorn and various forms of fried food smells wafting through the air. It was a warm night, and despite my hands hurting slightly still, it felt quite nice and oddly comfortable out on the roof.

After a few minutes with the only sound that of the still active festival, the fireworks began. We both lay back and watched the beautiful display of colors and lights above us and I lay my head on his shoulder. It had been years since I had seen fireworks and I enjoyed watching them with Logan.

I didn't know what it was about him, I still couldn't quite put my finger on it, but he made me think, he made me see the world in a different way than I always had and he made me feel things I had never felt. It hadn't been an hour yet since we had been arguing and yelling and I had proceeded to beat my fists against his chest, and yet there we were, lying outside on the roof of the mansion watching colors exploding into the night sky. I had thought that I meant nothing to him; I was just someone to occupy his time until he could find something better to do, but I had been wrong. I didn't know what it was exactly that he saw that drew him to me, but I was glad that he had indeed seen it. Being with him made me feel more like myself. Not only that, but I actually felt comfortable enough to be me, and that was something I hadn't felt in a long time.

"Would you rather; be attacked by vicious bears or sharks?" I asked as the last of the sparks from the finale fluttered and fell to the ground.

"Bears."

"Really? Why?"

"'Cause I should kill it and get away. You kill a shark and the blood's only gonna' attract more. That and I can run faster than I can swim. When you got metal on your bones, you ain't no freakin' fish." I laughed. "What about you?"

"I was going to say shark, but since you brought up the point of attracting other sharks if I killed it, I would probably have to agree with you and say bears as well," I said then we lay quietly for a few minutes more, thinking and enjoying the other's company. "Logan?"

"Hm?" he grunted.

"I was watching the news today."

"Yeah," he said, sounded confused as to why I would think he cared about the news.

"Well, they were talking about us, mutants. They say they're working on a cure-"

"You shouldn't watch that crap. We ain't sick, we ain't a disease, kid, we're people and you can't cure that."

"I know, but I was thinking something like that could actually…" I let out a deep breath, "help people."

"Like who?" he nearly growled.

"Like Rogue."

He swore and sat up, looking at me over his shoulder. "There ain't nothing wrong with Marie."

I followed his lead and sat up beside him. "Logan, she can't even touch people. She can't have a real relationship; she can't have kids. It was almost eighty degrees out today and she was wearing gloves and a scarf."

"She always does."

"But don't you see how ludicrous it is for her to have to cover herself constantly? Maybe it isn't about being sick or not. Maybe it isn't about whether it's right or wrong. Maybe Logan, it's about being able to help some of us."

He looked over at me. "You wanna' take it, then take it. I don't care, that's your decision. But don't let them make you think that they wanna' help us, 'cause they don't. They're scared and wanna' get rid of us. That's all it is. If they ever do make something, I ain't gonna' be waitin' in line to get it."

I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them. I looked down at my feet. "I know that they don't want to help us, but it might be able to. I know that they're scared of us, too, but some times…I'm scared of them." I looked up at him, a tear breaking free from my eye and running down my cheek. "Aren't you?"

He shook his head. "No," he said, "'cause they got more reasons to be scared of me." He wiped away the tear that had streaked its way to my jaw. "Let 'em be scared of you, too. You give 'em a good enough reason and they'll leave you alone. We got as much right to be here as they do and if they wanna' try and do something about it then they're gonna' have one heck of a fight on their hands."

Generally, hearing about fighting back against the humans was something I tended to tune out. I didn't want to think of the possibility of it. But looking into Logan's eyes, I knew that it would happen eventually and like he said; it would be one heck of a fight. That night I decided that I wasn't going to be ashamed of who I was anymore. I decided that when that fight came, it would be one of which I would be a part. If only I had known.

* * *

"Logan, get you suit on, we've got to go," Uncle Scott said. We had heard the vans pull up and had climbed off the roof. Scott met us half way downstairs as he was heading up, going towards his room.

"Where to?" Logan asked.

"Pennsylvania," he said, continuing up the stairs.

Logan turned and began following him. "Who's goin'?"

"Us, Jean and Rogue. Get your stuff together; we're meeting by the Blackbird in ten minutes."

There was a swell of anxiety in my chest as I watched them walk up the stairs together. This was serious; it wasn't a game or a chance to play superhero, it was something real. This was how we defended ourselves, and everyone else. My family, my friends, they put their own lives on the line in order to save humans. They very same humans that wanted to 'cure' us. It was the third mission that they had gone out on while I had been there. They had been sent out on the other one while I was asleep. I woke up when I felt the school shake and watched as they flew off into the night inside the jet.

"Hey," I called out. They both stopped and turned around to see me. "Be carefully guys, okay?"

They both nodded their heads.

"Yeah," Logan said.

"We will, sweetheart. I love you," Scott told me.

"I love you, too," I said with a sad, weak smile. "Sorry, you both still have to get ready, so go on."

They left to fight their battle and it was time for me to fight mine.

I entered the Professor's office after I saw the team off. He had allowed me to use it so that I might be able to use the phone in private. With bruised fingers, I dialed Officer Johnson's cell phone number. After four rings, he answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey Bobby, this is Delia. Were you trying to get in touch with me earlier?"

"Yeah, about an hour or so ago, I guess."

"Sorry, I was out watching fireworks and couldn't hear the phone," I lied.

"It's fine. Katie wanted to talk to you. She signed herself out of the clinic and she's staying at my house for now. But, uh…she asked me where you were and I told her that you were in Westchester with your uncle. I didn't realize it would be a problem, but she started yelling and screaming at me. She tried to hit me with the phone book."

"Yeah, sorry, she doesn't much like her brother."

"Apparently. But anyway, she wanted to speak with you…if you want?"

"Yeah, let me talk to her."

"All right, hold on and I'll get her," he said and I heard him walking. After a minute there was the sound of him knocking on a door, and then I assumed he covered the mouthpiece with his hand as it went a bit quiet and I could only hear muffled speaking.

"Yeah, what?" I heard my mother's voice say other end of the line.

"Hello mother."

"Delia, where are you?"

"I'm in New York."

"You put me in some _clinic_ and you're staying in _New York_?"

"Yes," I said, sitting on the edge of Xavier's desk and rubbing my brow. "Officer Johnson said that you wanted to speak to me."

"Well I was wondering why my own daughter hadn't come to visit me once while I was stuck in the stupid clinic. Then he told me that you were with that…_mutant_ in Westchester."

"I did come to visit you once, you told me to leave."

"Don't change the subject; are you with that freak or not?"

"Yes, I am. Bobby also mentioned that you hit him with a phone book."

"I _tried_ to hit him with one and I said don't change the subject while I'm talking. What are you doing there?"

"I'm talking on the phone with you," I said, smiling to myself for the very Logan-ish comment.

"Don't try to be cute with me, because it doesn't work."

"I'm not trying to be cute, you asked me what I was doing here and I told you."

"_Why_ are you there?"

"Because the rent money for our apartment curiously went missing and I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"That's not my fault; you should be more responsible with your money."

"_I_ was responsible with it. I gave it to _you_, remember?"

"Don't blame me for your mistakes."

"Well I didn't take my money and go buy liquor and coke. And seriously, why coke? Crack is so much cheaper."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bobby said that when they arrested you, you were drunk and had three ounces of coke on you. Now something tells me that he wasn't talking about a soft drink."

"Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about."

"I know what he told me."

"I know want to hear about it, so just shut up."

"No, I'm not going to shut up. We need to have a talk, a serious one, mother."

"About what?"

"About everything. I…I can't live how I am anymore. I can't waste my life taking care of you."

"Oh, poor Delia," she said bitter and sarcastically. "I never asked you to take care of me, I'm not a child. And what do you mean, waste your life? What else are you going to do? You're useless and dumb and the only thing you've ever done with your life is work at a diner that fired you over some stupid broken chairs."

"Merv didn't fire me because you broke the chair. He fired me because you broke it by throwing it through a _window_." I was both amazed and annoyed by the way she managed to make things always seem so much smaller and less important that what they really were. "And while we're at it, don't call me dumb and useless anymore, okay? Because I'm not and I'm not going to let you tell me that I am."

She let out a horridly amused laugh. "Who's filling your head with that nonsense, some silly little boy you met up there?"

"He's not a boy and it's not nonsense. He just made me realize that I'm wasting some of the most important years of my life on someone who doesn't even care about me."

"And he does?" she said coldly.

"More than you ever will."

"You really think that? You think that people could actually _love_ you, Delia? You know as well as I do that it's not true, so tell me; do you _really_ think that?"

"No…I know it. He loves me, he takes care of me and he doesn't have to tell me I'm stupid in order for him to feel better about himself."

"So he lies to you?"

"They're not lies, mother, it's the truth."

"You whine and complain to him, you tell him about your poor, sad little childhood where you never went without a place to sleep, food to eat or a roof over your head. You tell him all of that so he can tell you that you're wasting your life on me, but have you told him that I've wasted mine on you? I was twenty years old when I had you; I gave up everything and came back to this stupid town so that I could raise you. And what do you have to say for it? That I've ruined your life. You're an ungrateful person, you always have been."

"You're hurting me, mother, you have been since daddy died."

"Do _not_ bring Bill into this!" she snapped.

"Well he's part of it. You hated me before I was born, but when daddy died, you blamed me."

"You didn't listen to the stars; you never have, even when you were younger. You defied their rules and what they had set for you and because of that, your consequence was for him to die. You chose that and because of you, my soul's partner died."

"Because of me? Because of _me_?" I yelled into the receiver. "Are you _serious_? What happened wasn't my fault, and I have never deserved that sort of blame and guilt forced on me, yet you've done it since I was eight. What happen was your fault; not mine."

"My fault? How was it mine? I've always listened to the stars and have done what they've said."

"They're _stars_, they don't talk!" I yelled. "We are people, with our own minds and we decide what to do with our lives, not some flaming balls of gas stuck in the sky. _We_ do."

"Do _not _say that. You start defying them again and they'll take more away from _me_ as _your_ punishment."

"And what could they take away from you? Your drugs, your alcohol? What's the dearest thing you own right now, because daddy's gone and it's never been me. Why won't you just stop hiding behind your stupid beliefs and just be accountable for your own mistakes?"

"What mistakes?"

"I'm not a stupid child. Did you really think I wouldn't find out what happened? You were having an affair with that fighter that daddy was up against that night. He killed him on purpose because he thought that if he did, you would marry him. It was _your_ fault. _You_ killed him, not me. So whatever stupid theory you have about stars a million miles away from us being to blame for taking away the only person who loved me, then you can just get over yourself, because that's what it is; a _stupid theory_. You took him away from me and you blamed _me_ for it. You had no right to make me feel that way. Ever. Because of you, I'm afraid of getting close to people. Because of you, I can't be me. You said that because I don't believe in your stupid faith, you lost your soul's partner. There's no such thing, and if there was, he wasn't yours because you didn't even know him."

"How dare you say that to me? I knew everything about him; we knew _everything_ about each other."

"No you didn't. You didn't know he was a mutant." There was a sickening silence on the other end of the line that almost made me feel satisfied. "Daddy was a mutant and you hate them, don't you? How could a faith that you believe in so strongly link your soul to that of a mans that you would've hated if you had known who he truly was? How could the same stars that you believe to know everything have been cruel enough to do that to you? But do you know what might be even worse? Daddy was a mutant and so am I. You can hate me even more for that if you want, I don't care. I don't even care why you hate me. Whether it's for telling you what he was, for having something from him that you'll never have or if it's just because it's me, and you always have. I don't care anymore; I'm tired. I'm tired of you not loving me, of you blaming me for your own mistakes, of you making me feel worthless and I'm done with your game. You want to be free, then do it. I didn't take away your freedom; you did that to yourself. I found out that there are people who can actually care about me. There are people who don't think I'm dumb, and ugly, and worthless. There are people who actually love me and that I can trust. So I'm sorry, but…I'm through," I told her and hung up the phone.

I was tired and worn out and ready to give up. But Logan had given me enough courage to get back up and deliver the last blow. I just wish that he had been there to hear it for himself.

* * *

Breakfast the next day was sad for me without Logan and Uncle Scott. Professor Xavier tired to keep a conversation going with me, but I was just too busy worrying about the team and my situation with mother to pay much attention to him.

"I'm sorry sir, I'm just not all here today," I said with a weak smile.

"Don't apologize, I understand, my thoughts are with the team as well," he said, wheeling away from the empty table, save me. "I should tell you that when I find I need a place to think, I go out to the garden by myself. It helps to clear your head if you have more than a wall to look at."

"Thank you," I said with a more genuine smile before following his advice.

I went out to the garden and sat down on the same bench I had run into when Logan and I had first met. It was slightly odd for me to think back and remember that there was a time when I hadn't known him. How had we gotten so close so fast? Never had I ever been as close to anyone as I had been him, and yet I hadn't known him for more than three months. He was somehow everything I didn't have a needed. He felt familiar and yet he was something I had never known.

I was sitting outside, lost in my thoughts, when I felt it start raining. I looked to the sky and saw a storm coming towards the school. The sky opened up and the rain began to pour from it as I ran back into the house. As I was passing by the Professor's door on my way up to my room, I heard him calling me. I entered his office timidly, not wanting to get his carpet wet.

"Delia, you have a phone call, it's Officer Johnson. I have to go to classes so you may have my office to yourself for your own privacy," he said and then wheeled past me in his chair.

I stared at the phone sitting off its hook and my heart jumped. What if mother had decided to change? What if what I had told her had actually gotten through to her and she wanted to apologize? I knew it was highly unlikely, but my head got carried away with me anyway.

I walked over and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Delia, this is Bobby."

"Hey Bob." There was a clash of thunder and I jumped some.

"I'm afraid that I have some bad news, honey. I'm really sorry." His voice sounded hoarse and shaky. My heart sank. This wasn't about her apologizing. "Delia, uh…this morning…this morning I uh…I found Katie in her room. I'm afraid she…she, uh, she passed away."

My heart not only sank, it stopped beating completely. "What?" I heard myself croak. "W-what happened?"

"She…hung herself."

I fell to the floor of Xavier's office and landed on my weak knees. "Oh my word." That was all I could think of to say. Everything else was gone. My mind was blank. Never before had I been speechless.

"I'm sorry, I really am. This is terrible and I hate it for you."

I couldn't breathe. Everything inside of me felt dead and I didn't know what to do. I was numb. "Why? Did she say why?"

"She left a note, but I didn't really understand it. I thought you might."

"What did it say?" I asked, going through the motions, but not feeling them.

"It just said that her life had not been what it was meant to be here and that her soul needed to leave to find its partner among the stars, or something. Does that mean anything to you?"

I nodded my head, though he couldn't see me. "Yeah, it does."

"I'm just really sorry Delia. I know that this is hard. And I hate it with the weather like it is; it reminds me of when I came to tell you about Bill. I think the storm was worse that night, though," he said and continued to talk, but I didn't hear the rest of it, my mind had stopped at that.

It was storming the night daddy got hurt; _that's_ why I was scared of storms.

"I, uh, I have to go Bobby, I have to go," I said numbly, hanging up the phone.

I had to get out. I couldn't breathe in the school and I had to get out. I stood to my feet and ran from the mansion. My feet carried me without my mind knowing where they were taking me. The rain poured down on me as I ran through the gates of the school where I had pulled up only weeks before for the first time.

A small pile of leaves was blown into the wind, a rogue one sticking to my left pant leg and I couldn't help but think that that was my life. I was a pile of leaves that would settle until the next big gush of wind came along to blow me to another place. It continued to do so, losing a little of myself on each move, until I was nearly all gone.

I was used to hard situations, but never before had I caused anyone to kill themselves. I never should have told my mother about my father. Or me.

I was crying, running and the rain continued still to fall down on me like a cold sheet of ice. I had never hurt so much and felt so numb at the same time in all of my life. Although I was running as fast as I could, everything felt as if it were in slow motion. I stopped and looked around, my mind not registering where I was. My chest heaved as I attempted to catch my breath. I stood out in the middle of a street as the storm raged around me, then I felt a blow to the back of my head and everything went black.

Hell found me. It never lacked ways; only time.


	11. Missing Link

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to anything Marvel, Fox or even the title of this story. I'm simply a poor little girl who only rips people off when they're not looking...and hope they don't sue.

Sidenote: This is the last chapter and I want to know what ya'll think; was it a good idea for me to take time off between this one and my last story? Was it good? I need to know what ya'll think about it so I can know better for next time. Writing has always been something I loved and something I hope to do with my adult life, and ya'll have been a great sounding board for me as I've grown and gotten better over just the past year and a half. So thank you guys so much and I hope the last chapter is everything you want it to be and more. On with the story and please enjoy!

* * *

My eyes opened slowly, the dim light adding to the pain in my head. I looked around me. I was in a small room, from what I could tell. Aside from the light above me, everything was dark. 

My hands were in type of handcuffs, each was attached to some sort of wire, the wires were connected to the floor, but neither gave me enough slack to move very far. I was away from any type of wall and sitting up straight. I couldn't stand or lay back; all I could do was sit.

I yanked at my restraints, trying to break free, but all I managed to do was cause the metal inside the cuffs to cut my wrists, making them bleed. The blood ran hot down my cold hands, dripping to the floor, making pools below them.

I didn't know where I was, how I had gotten there or even how long I had been out, but I was scared. My hair and clothes were damp, making my whole body shake with the coldness they brought.

"Help me! Help me! Someone, please!" I yelled out into the darkened room. I continued to pull at my restraints to no avail, my wrists only bled more.

I screamed and pulled at my cuffs until my voice gave out and there were two small puddles of blood beside me. I had given up hope of anyone being able to hear me when I saw a man emerge from the darkness. He was in black dress pants and a black dress shirt, with gray hair peeking out from underneath some type of helmet that he wore on his head. Although I had been screaming for him, something told me that he wasn't there to help me.

He continued walking until he was only a foot or two away from me. "Do you know who I am?" he asked. I shook my head 'no'. "My name is Eric. I am an old friend of Charles Xavier's. Perhaps you've heard him speak of me?" Again, I shook my head. "Then perhaps you've heard him call me by my other name; Magneto?"

"You're not a good guy," I blurted out hoarsely, too weak and tired to think of anything else to say.

He gave me a short smile. "No, but I'm not the bad one either."

"You kill people."

"So does your uncle, do you think he's a bad guy?"

"My uncle didn't chain me to the floor," I spat.

"Do you know _why_ you're chained to the floor?"

"No."

"Because _you _are going to help _me_."

"No I'm not."

"My dear girl, you really don't have a say in the matter. You will be my tool in negotiating between Charles and his team."

"Why?"

"Because you are the link between the humans and mutants. If I'm not mistaken, your mother is quite active in the anti-mutant campaigns. You are going to help me in finding their rallies and stopping them. The humans will soon learn that if they feared us before, it's nothing compared to what we will make them feel now."

"I won't help you kill innocent people."

"Innocent? Do you think that what they are trying to do to us is innocent? They want to kill us as much as we want to kill them. Besides, if you don't help me, I will kill your uncle when he arrives. And make no mistaken, he will come for you."

"How do you know me?"

"As I said before; I am an old friend of Charles."

"So he told you how to find me? He set this up?"

He laughed. "He wouldn't even be capable of doing something like this. No, this I had to do on my own."

"How did I get here?"

"My partner Mystique brought you here," he said, then smiled at someone behind me. I felt a prick as a needle slid into my neck, causing my skin to sting as something hot ran into my veins. "Get some rest; we'll need you soon."

Then my eyes slid closed and I went to sleep.

* * *

The next time I woke, everything was different. 

I was awake before my eyes would open. My brain felt as it there was a fog clouding it, making it hard for me to wake up and think. I heard sounds, but nothing made sense. There were grunts, swearwords, yelling, the sound of metal against other objects and feet pounding against the ground.

When I did finally force my eyes open, what I saw baffled me still. I saw a woman, who was blue, kick Uncle Scott in the head, knocking his visor off his face and sending it a few feet from where I sat, as he dropped to the ground unconscious. The Logan came up behind her and stabbed her through the back with his claws, causing the tips of them to show through her chest. As Logan pulled his claws out, he turned, ready to slice into Magneto, who was coming up behind him. But before his claws could even reach flesh, Logan was being lifted from the ground. I watched as he hovered in the air about teen feet above me, his outstretched claws separating and slowly pulling the bones in his hands apart, causing them to break. He swore a long line of words, cursing him and calling him names. He screamed as his whole body shook.

I looked from Logan to the man causing him his pain, to the blue woman lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, to Scott who was knocked out not too far from her. And then there was me, chained to the floor, unable to stand as far as I could throw a person, which wasn't at all. The sights before me made me feel wide-awake and terrified.

I turned my eyes back up to Logan, who was still hovering in the air, only instead of separating his claws; Magneto had turned his attention to something much worse. I watched as he pulled at Logan's body with his magnetic powers, and I saw everything shift inside of him. The back of his body falling slack as he brought his skeleton forward. I saw Logan's bones press against his skin, making them visible to me. I gasped in horror as I watched, waiting for them to break free of his skin. He screamed in pain and I saw the skin tightening around his face, pulling it back until his cheekbones, jaw line, chin, everything protruded from his face. I could see his adamantium lined skeletal structure fighting to break free of his body and feared that soon it would.

"Stop it! Stop! You're hurting him, stop!" I cried. There are two types of crying; one means to weep and the other means to call out. At that particular moment, I was doing both. Hot, angry tears fell from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks and falling to their death on the ground. They poured from me as I stared up at him shaking in pain and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

Magneto looked at me, but didn't stop his torture on Logan. "Ah, did the noise wake you? I apologize; I was hoping to have a more civilized conversation, however, they obviously came here with other ideas."

"Leave them alone, you said you wanted me!"

"So you've decided to take me up on my offer?"

"If you leave them alone."

"No!" Logan yelled.

"I'm afraid it's not as easy as just letting them go. You see, in order for this to work, I will need full cooperation from you all. Do you hear that Wolverine?" Magneto said, pulling harder, causing Logan to scream out in pain again.

"What do you want from them?"

"You see, when you help your mother to organize the country's largest anti-mutant rally, and I'm there to kill them all, I need to know that Xavier's little team of X-Men won't be there to ruin it for me. If you don't agree, then they will die. It's simple really; give me what I want and everyone gets to live."

"Not everyone."

"Those who deserve it."

"It won't work," I said.

"And why is that?" he asked.

"My mother's dead."

"Do_ not_ lie to me girl," he said, strengthening his hold on Logan and pulling harder once again. Logan let out a loud scream.

"Stop it! I'm not lying!" I continued to cry. I couldn't stand to watch him in so much pain.

"Do you accept my offer then?"

"Don't…Delia…don't," Logan gasped through gritted teeth.

"I can't, she's dead. My mother is _dead_!" My lungs began to hurt from crying. I didn't know what to do. I had caused my mother to kill herself and now there were mutants whose lives were on the line because of it. "Please, just stop hurting him! Please!" I saw Uncle Scott stir and began to wake from the corner of my eye. If I could keep Magneto distracted, maybe he could stop him. "My mother's dead, but let me help you, I can do it on my own," I lied.

"How?"

"I know some of mother's friends, the ones that hate us. I could organize a bigger one, if I had their help. And you were right; they want to kill us as much as we want to kill them. If you leave them alone, I can organize rallies in other countries, too."

Scott opened his eyes and an optic blast shot up, blasting into the ceiling and causing debris instantly to fall. The surprise caused Magneto to lose his concentration. As he did, he lost his hold on Logan, who fell down fast, landing on me. My bones couldn't break, but as his heavy body landed on top of mine, I felt something shift and knew that something was wrong. Nothing could break, but my left shoulder could pop out of joint. Which it did.

Logan wasn't down long before he stood, sliced through the wires that were connected to my handcuffs and pulled me up. My legs were weak from sitting so long, but I didn't hesitate to grab for Uncle Scott's visor and throw it towards him.

"Scott, feel down by your feet!" I yelled, struggling to remain standing.

He did as I said and soon he had his eyes hidden safely behind his visor. He then turned it on and blasted Magneto with a low enough setting that it knocked him off his feet and unconscious.

Without another word, the three of us ran. None of us was doing too good, but we ran as fast as we could. My legs were weak and it felt as if we were running through an endless tunnel. Everything was dim and I didn't know where I was at, I didn't know where I was going, I didn't even know really what was going on, I just followed Uncle Scott. After ten minutes of running down tunnel after tunnel, past body after body, some dead, some only unconscious, we stopped.

"This is a water way and we're going to go through it. It's going to be slippery, so just be careful, Delia," Scott said, lifting up the man hole. He then lowered himself down into it. I hesitated some, watching him disappear into the darkness below me, wondering if my legs were strong enough to not only climb down the small ladder, but to also continue running the length of the water way and probably more. My brain was still foggy from whatever drug they had given me and everything seemed more complicated than it needed to be in order for me to keep up with the two of them. "It's okay sweetheart, climb down and I'll get you," he called from below.

I let out a deep breath and prepared myself for the pain that would no doubt follow as I used my dislocated shoulder to climb down the ladder. I lowered myself down into the manhole, expecting the pain that shot through my body, but not knowing how to deal with it. I just gritted my teeth and continued down. Sure enough, Uncle Scott was there to help me. Logan then followed behind me, pulling the manhole closed as he did. Once we were all three down, we continued our running once again. As Uncle Scott had warned, it was slippery and every time I would slip, Logan was there to help me up. The water leaked into my sneakers as we ran, causing my socks to become wet as well, making my feet rub raw the more we ran.

The water way was shorter than I had thought it would be and soon we were climbing out of it. For some reason, I thought that once we were out of it, we wouldn't have to run anymore, but we did. We came out right at the edge of a wooded area and as quickly as I could, I tried to keep up with Scott. But I couldn't. I hadn't stood in hours and then I had run for about fifteen minutes almost nonstop and my legs just couldn't take it.

I stumbled to the ground and fought to get back up. Once I did, Logan came behind me and scooped me up in his arms. He ran carrying me for another ten more minutes until we came upon the other end of the woods. There was some sort of factory that looked abandoned with a lone care in the otherwise empty parking lot. Logan let me sown and we walked to it. Scott opened it up and got into the driver's seat.

"There's no keys; Logan can you start it without them?"

"Yeah," he said, getting into the passenger's side. I heard one of his claws pop out and a few seconds later, the engine started.

I numbly opened the door behind Uncle Scott's and climbed in before he threw it into reverse and we drove away. Only then did I have time to stop and really think about how much pain I was in; my arm was killing me, my legs were sore, my feet were burning, my back was hurting and my neck was stiff from whatever type of shot it was that they had given me. In short; my whole body felt as if it were on fire with the sensation of pain.

We were driving on some back road, paved with gravels and trees covering the sky. Everything was dark and I couldn't tell if it was becoming day or night. I realized as I say there that even though I had quit running some time ago, I was still breathing heavily. My body shook with the rush of adrenaline still surging though my veins. I clutched at my shoulder and looked out my window when a sudden idea came to me.

With some difficulty, I began rolling down my window and when it was all the way down, I placed my arm outside, lining my shoulder up with the windowpane. Then I began to roll it up, my arm still between it.

"What are you doing?" Scott asked, looking at me through the rearview mirror. Logan turned around in his seat and looked at me, cocking an eyebrow in agreement to the question.

"My shoulder's out of joint and I'm going to put it back into place."

"By rolling it up in a car window?" he asked.

"Yeah, I remember daddy doing it after a match once."

"I think you should wait until Jean can fix it for you."

"How far away is she?"

"About forty-five minutes."

"Sorry, can't wait that long," I said, continuing to roll up the window. I eventually had to stand from my seat as much as I could and when I got to my arm, my shoulder sandwiched between the windowpane and the top of the car, I braced myself for the pain and then gave one more strong crank on the handle. As the two pieces of the vehicle stretched to connect, they brought my bone up and with a loud 'pop' and an odd pressure and pain I had never felt before, my shoulder was back into place.

"Oh my dear word!" I yelled through gritted teeth. "That is _not_ a good feeling!"

"I told you to wait until I got you to Jean," Uncle Scott said.

"She would have done the same thing."

"Only without the car window," Logan said as I rolled the window down enough to pull my arm back through. "Are your hands bleedin'?"

I looked down at the shackles still attached to me. "My wrists were," I said, pulling at the cuffs. "Can you get these of me?"

Logan extended a claw. "Not while we're driving. What if we hit something? You could hurt her," Scott protested.

"Well if I don't take 'em off, they're just gonna' keep makin' her wrists bleed, so I'm think you oughta' just mind your drivin' and let me deal with her, alright?"

"We just all could have been killed back there and the two of you are fighting like an old married couple. This is pathetic," I said from the backseat.

"Come here, give me your hands," Logan said.

I moved in my seat until I was as close to him as I could be. He took the claw that he had extended by only about three inches and slipped it between my wrist and the cuff. In one swift move, he cut it off, sending it to the floor of the car. Then he repeated it with the one of the left.

I felt at the cuts on my wrist. They were sore. "Thanks," I said, sitting back in my seat and looking out my window at the still thick trees around us.

"Don't worry about it," he replied expectedly, sitting back into his own seat.

"What day is it?"

"It's Sunday morning," Scott answered, coming to the end of the gravely road and pulling onto a more paved one.

"I thought you were on a mission in Pennsylvania?"

"We were, but we finished early. When we got back, Professor Xavier said that he hadn't seen you since yesterday morning. He said he thought that you had left the school and we all got worried about you. Logan was the one who thought something was wrong, though."

"Why did you think that?" I asked.

"'Cause it was stormin' and I knew you wouldn't be out in it on your own."

"I was. I ran out into it and then when I stopped, someone knocked me out."

"Why would you run out in the middle of a storm?" Uncle Scott asked.

"I wasn't really thinking; I just had to get out of there."

"Why?"

"Right after you left, I called and talked to mother. There were a lot of things I needed to tell her and I did. But I also told her that…that I'm a mutant."

"What did she say?"

"She didn't. I told her that and then finished telling her what I had called for and hung up."

"So why was that a reason to go running out in a storm yesterday morning?"

"It wasn't. The Professor called me into his office as he was going off to classes because Bobby Johnson was on the phone. He said that mother died. She killed herself." Scott let out a deep breath and shook his head. Again, Logan was caught awkwardly as the two of us shared a pain that he couldn't understand. "I couldn't handle it, I needed out of there, so I just ran away." A tear slid down my cheek and I was too tired to wipe it away. "I knew that I never should have told her. I knew it would be too much for her."

"Hey," Scott said firmly. "What Katie died was her decision, not yours, okay? It doesn't matter what you told her, she was the one who decided to react the way she did. She was always extreme about things; there was no one you could tell what she would do. Not many people are brave enough to tell their families that sort of thing and with as much fear as Katie had put into you about it, I don't think hardly anyone would have been able to do what you did. Even though the results were less than desired, I'm proud of you Delia, you stood up for what you thought was right and did what you believed in. And you're going to be okay, I promise. I'll always take care of you."

"Will you always come rescue me when I'm kidnapped by psycho maniacs?" I asked through a mixture of laughter and tears.

I saw him smile at me through the rearview mirror. "Why? Do you plan on making a habit out of it?"

"No, I wasn't planning on it, but you know me; nothing ever goes how I plan it. Besides, it was quite nice to have two men come to my rescue." My voice was still hoarse and my crying wasn't helping it any.

"We're always going to be there, sweetheart, don't worry."

We continued to drive, none of us speaking, for nearly thirty minutes. At that time, the car died; it was out of gas.

"The jet's about half a mile that way," Uncle Scott said, pointing to the vast emptiness on our right. "I'm going to walk to it and have Jean and Rogue fly this way to get you. Just sit tight." He then got out and began walking in the direction to which he had pointed. After about ten more minutes spent in silence, he looked only like a moving speck in the morning's early light.

I opened my door and stumbled out of the car. I walked to the front and leaned back against the already cooled hood.

The sun had yet to rise, though it was trying, and the absence of it left the barren landscape bathed in a light of blue color. I didn't know where we were, but it was woods to my back and flat, dusty grounds to my front, where I could see the horizon.

I heard a car door open, close and the Logan was beside me, leaning back against the hood.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

He let out a sigh. "I'm alright, still alive. How about you; I landed on you pretty hard?"

"Nothing that won't heal," I said, looking down at my hands. They were cut, covered in dry blood and dirt with fading bruises from where I had hit him. It had been less than two days since it had happened and yet it seemed like it had been so long ago. So much had happened since then. "I'm still alive," I smiled, throwing his words back at him.

"I'm sorry about your mother."

I looked over at him. He was staring out at the horizon and watching as the sun tried to fight its way up. Although he was saying sorry because my mother had died, I knew that wasn't all he meant. He was sorry for how she had treated me, for how she had made me feel, for making me scared to be a mutant, for making me even more scared to get close to people. He was sorry that she had made me feel as if everything she had done was my fault. As if all of her mistakes were somehow mine as well. He was sorry that I hadn't had a better one, one that loved me. Though he hadn't said it all, that's what he meant, and I heard it.

"Yeah, me too," I said, looking back to the rising sun. "Thank you, though."

We both stood there, doing nothing but breathing, but we were doing something important, we were living. Mother had taken being able to breathe for granted and had given up her power to do so. She had willingly stopped the single most important thing to our being. She had given up. I had thought about it before myself, had contemplated the idea of ending it all to stop the pain, but I didn't.

When I met Logan, I was a scared little girl who wanted nothing more than to just go back to my familiar old routine. To go back to being in a situation full of pain, because I was too scared to be brave. I was tangled and trapt in a toxic web that I craved to be back in because I thought I belonged and deserved to be there. When we met, I was terrified of him because despite not remembering his past, he knew who he was, and I was lost.

The day I met him, I went to the woods to watch the sunrise, during which time I realized that I could breathe on my own. Without mother there to smother me with her overwhelming beliefs and lies, I could live. In a place were she wasn't, I was alive.

I realized that from then on, no matter where I went, she couldn't hurt me. I was free to live where I wanted, to do as I pleased, and yet I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

I lay my hand down on the hood of the car and Logan covered mine with his. I lay my head on his shoulder and we watched the sunrise. It was beautiful, lighting up the emptiness the higher it climbed in the sky. No matter what happens in the world, in your life, no matter how bad things seem to be, the sunrise is always perfect. It's always beautiful. It's always there.

As we watched it together, I took in that moment. Nothing could ever beat it for me. Although so many bad things had led us to that point, I had never felt so at peace, so comfortable, so right. My life had led me there and I was entirely grateful for it.

As we stood there, I remembered something my mother had told me once. I had thought more about it in the past two months than I had in the seventeen years since she had told it to me, and I had wrote it off as a lie. After some of the information that I had found out about my parents over the past years, and especially in that week, I had just believed that she had no idea what she had been talking about. I believed it completely and whole-heartedly. She told me that when we're born, we're linked to someone, somewhere else. She said that part of our life's journey is to find and recognize who they are. They don't have to be romantic figures in our lives, or specific gender, or age. They can be our lover, friend, teacher, mentor, student, whatever, but the souls are perfect matches of one another. It's why we're attracted to other people for what seems like no reason. There's something we feel but can't see or describe. I didn't know if she was right, but believed that she wasn't because there was no way that she could have felt that way about my father. She without knowing it secretly hated him for something that he had been scared into hiding from the world. She had broken their marriage by cheating on him, more times than I wish I knew. She was emotionally void of anything good in her life and I believed what she had told me was just another on a long list of lies and disillusions she had fed to me since birth. That's what I believed. Until then.

Logan was my match. My missing link. My life had been a journey to meet him. He was everything I wasn't, I was the same for him, and I believe that we were meant to find each other. We were meant to make up for what the other didn't have. We were meant to meet. We reminded each other of the two most important people who had been in our lives.

He was my father, my friend, my strength, my weakness, my inspiration, my everything. He was the love of my life even though the only time we had ever kissed was in a dream. It was something I had never experienced. There was a connection between us that was nothing short of amazing. There had always been something about him that I never could quite put my finger on, something that drew me to him. That morning, I put my finger on it, snatched it up and held on to it as tightly as I could.

"Would you rather; it always be day or night?" Logan asked.

He was my soul mate and _that_ I knew.

I let out a small, hoarse laugh, filling the silence around us. "I suppose that I would rather it to always be night."

"Really?"

"Yeah?"

"Why?"

"Because you can create light, but if it were always day, you couldn't make it darker. Not easily anyway. Besides, look at me; my skin was not made for the sun to be up all the time. What about you?"

"Yeah, if I had to pick, I'd go with night, too."

I looked up at him and smiled. "I hope I never have to choose, though, because I really like watching the sunrise with you."

"Me, too darlin'."

"What are you going to do when we get home?"

"Take a shower and sleep. You?"

"I want to eat, preferably cold pizza and hot chocolate," I said and laughed at the disgusted look on his face. "Then I would like a long, hot bubble bath, to sleep until tomorrow and then get my stuff together and go to Connecticut."

He moved so that he could look over at me. "You're goin' back?"

"She was my mother, Logan, no matter what happened between us and I'm going to go to her funeral."

"What're you gonna' do after it's over?"

I looked over at him and smiled. "I think I'm going to stay here for the summer."

"I don't want you to stay here for the summer."

The smile fell from my face, but I didn't have time to reply. I felt the wind on my shoulder and turned to see the Blackbird landing behind us. We walked to it, up the ramp and entered the jet. I saw Uncle Scott, Jean and Rogue. They looked tired, their uniforms were ripped and torn just like Logan's and I knew that I looked probably just as bad.

With a word spoken, we both found seats and buckled ourselves in before Scott took off. We had been flying for nearly half an hour when Logan finally came down from the cockpit and stood in front of me. He had told me that he didn't want me to stay for the summer. I had spent that time wondering why. He had made such a big deal about it. He had been so adamant about me staying longer. Maybe he just didn't want me to go back to mother and since she was gone, he didn't care if I went back. I didn't know. I didn't understand.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.

"Yeah," I agreed, standing and following him to the back of the jet so that we could talk privately. "What did you want to talk about?"

"When we were talkin' earlier, I said I didn't want you to stay for the summer. I meant it."

"But I thought-"

"No. I don't want you to stay for the summer; I want you to stay longer."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

A slow, small smile crept across my face. "I can do that."

He nodded his head. "Good."

I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him. "Thank you, Logan, for everything."

He placed a kiss on the side of my forehead. "Don't worry about it."

There was more meaning behind our words than they conveyed, but we didn't have to clarify what they meant; we already knew.

"I love you," I whispered so quietly that if someone else were to have been standing there, they wouldn't have even heard it.

"I love you too, darlin'," he whispered back, "and I ain't gonna' let anything else happen to you. I promise."

"Hey," Uncle Scott called from the front of the jet. We both broke our embrace and looked at him. "I can see you, I'm right here."

"So what?" Logan growled.

"So, can you not put the moves on my niece in front of me?"

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "No one's putting 'the moves' on anyone," I said, walking back towards my seat. "We were just talking."

"About what?" he asked. "Because you didn't look like you were just talking."

"Leave them alone, Scott," Jean defended.

"I think they're cute together," said Rogue.

"Nothing's going on, like I said; we were just talking." I said as Logan growled, walking back to his seat.

"Then what were you talking about, if that's all you were doing?" Scott questioned as I sat down in my seat.

I looked around at the four of them, watching and listening to them. They were different, we all were, but it worked. We worked. We loved each other. We took care of each other. We were always there for each other. We laughed together and fought together. We could discus anything and everyone's opinions mattered. We were mutants, freaks of nature, homo sapient superior, whatever you want to call us. But they were my teachers, my mentors, my friends. They understood me like no others and had proven that at times, they had even known me better than I did myself. They weren't scared to hold up a mirror and show me the truth about my life. They wouldn't let me be scared and they wouldn't let me take the easy way out. They saw through my disguises and revealed the true me. They weren't scared to make me sit through my pain so that I could realize how much I was hurting. They gave me back the courage to trust and believe in people again. They had given me a life that I had never got to live. They taught me to speak up, the importance of being silent, and the knowledge of knowing which one I should be. For the first time in my life, I'm proud to say that these people, whoever they are to you, are most importantly, the ones who I call my family.

"Just take me home, Uncle Scott," Logan turned around and gave me the eyebrow and I flashed him a tired smile. "I just want to go home."

The End


End file.
